What Does Isaiah 6:12 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Removal wounds two places at once: people are carried far away, while abandonment spreads through the land they leave.
THE MEANING
The LORD is the one who removes people far away, and the land is left in a growing state of abandonment. The verse speaks now with both consequences visible: distance for those removed and forsakenness in the place that remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that displacement affects only the people who are taken away; the land left behind bears its force too.
THE ROOT
הִרְחִיק
hirchiq
GROWS FROM
רחק
To be far away, or to make distant.
“removed” in this verse is hirchiq. The verb presents the LORD as causing the people to become distant. Its root keeps the focus on distance from a place, while the next clause names what grows there: abandonment.
ALSO GROWS
rachōq: Far, distant.
רָחוֹק
It shares the verse’s root and shows that removal is movement into distance.
marchaq: A distance, a far-off place.
מַרְחָק
This branch makes the distance itself a measure of how far the people are removed.
הָעֲזוּבָה
haʿazuvah
GROWS FROM
עזב
To leave, abandon, or let go.
“forsaking” in this verse is haʿazuvah. The word names the land’s condition as being left behind. Its root also means simply “leave,” tying the people’s departure to the forsakenness that fills the land.
ALSO GROWS
azav: To leave or abandon.
עָזַב
This verb shows the action beneath the land’s state of forsaking.
azuv: Abandoned, forsaken.
עָזוּב
This form names what remains when something or someone has been left.
THE PATTERN
When people are scattered or removed, the place they leave can become desolate and forsaken.
And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.THE THREAD
For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.Isaiah names the land עֲזוּבָה, abandoned; Psalm 37:28 uses the same root, עזב, to say the LORD does not abandon his saints. The shared root makes the question in Isaiah’s line vivid: what, and who, is left behind?
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