What Does Isaiah 61:2 Mean in the King James?
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
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
God names favor, vengeance, and comfort together, so the mourner’s grief is met with tenderness while the wrong around it remains visible.
THE MEANING
God’s favor and day of vengeance stand beside comfort for all who mourn. The verse speaks to your grief now as something seen and answered, holding consolation and divine reckoning together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that comfort requires forgetting what caused grief; the verse places comfort beside God’s vengeance.
THE ROOT
לְנַחֵם
lenaḥēm
GROWS FROM
נ־ח־ם
n-ḥ-m
The root’s biblical range includes comforting or consoling, and, in another Hebrew stem, relenting or regretting.
“to comfort” in this verse is lenaḥēm. The same root can name consolation given to mourners and a turning in response to what is happening. Here, comfort stands beside God’s decisive response to wrong.
ALSO GROWS
niḥēm: Comforted or consoled; the Piel stem.
נִחֵם
This is the form behind the verse’s promise to comfort those who mourn.
niḥam: Relented or regretted; the Niphal stem.
נִחַם
This branch shows the root also describing a change in response, giving the promise of comfort a sense of active response to grief.
נָקָם
nāqām
GROWS FROM
נ־ק־ם
n-q-m
To avenge or exact retribution for a wrong.
The verse names this vengeance as belonging to God and places it beside comfort for mourners. The word keeps reckoning with harm within the promised future.
ALSO GROWS
nāqam: To avenge or take vengeance; the verb.
נָקַם
It names the action behind the ‘day of vengeance.’
nōqēm: An avenger; one who takes vengeance.
נֹקֵם
This form makes explicit the agent implied in the verse: the vengeance belongs to God.
רָצוֹן
rāṣōn
GROWS FROM
ר־צ־ה
r-ṣ-h
To be pleased with or accept; the root’s noun forms also convey favor or goodwill.
“acceptable” in this verse is rāṣōn. The Hebrew phrase can be heard as ‘year of favor,’ aligning with the root’s sense of acceptance and goodwill. The year is marked by the LORD’s welcome toward the reader.
ALSO GROWS
rāṣāh: To be pleased with or accept.
רָצָה
This verb gives the ‘acceptable year’ its root sense of being received with favor.
rāṣûy: Accepted or pleasing.
רָצוּי
This related form echoes the verse’s language of acceptance and favor.
THE PATTERN
Scripture holds consolation together with God’s answer to suffering and sorrow.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.THE THREAD
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.Both verses use the Hebrew root נ־ח־ם (naḥam), meaning comfort or console. The repeated imperative in Isaiah 40 turns consolation into a direct declaration to the mourner.
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