What Does Isaiah 60:15 Mean in the King James?
Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.
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
The forsaken one is given a new identity: a joy that reaches across generations.
THE MEANING
You are not finally named by abandonment or hatred. The one spoken to becomes an enduring joy, shared across generations.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being abandoned permanently defines what your life can become.
THE ROOT
מָשׂוֹשׂ
māsōs
GROWS FROM
שׂושׂ
שׂוּשׂ (sūs) means to rejoice, to exult.
The word translated “joy” grows from the verb “to rejoice”: the verse names more than a passing feeling; it names a rejoicing quality the forsaken one becomes. Its reach across generations gives that change a horizon beyond the present moment.
ALSO GROWS
sās: Rejoicing; exulting.
שָׂשׂ
This verbal form makes clear that the joy in the verse carries the root’s sense of rejoicing.
sāsōn: Gladness; exultation.
שָׂשׂוֹן
This related noun appears in Isaiah 51:3, where joy is found in a landscape transformed from waste to garden.
THE PATTERN
A condition of sorrow or abandonment does not have to remain the final identity; it can give way to lasting joy.
In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.THE THREAD
For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.Isaiah 51:3 uses the same root, שׂושׂ (sūs, “to rejoice”), for the joy found in places that were waste. It opens this verse further: the joy named here belongs even where abandonment once seemed to define the landscape.
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