What Does Isaiah 61:8 Mean in the King James?
For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
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
A burnt offering cannot turn robbery into justice: the verse binds the LORD’s love of judgment to work set in truth and covenant across the ages.
THE MEANING
The verse shows the LORD’s character in the present: justice is loved, and taking from another remains robbery even when brought as an offering. Work is handled in truth, and covenant reaches across the ages. Your worship, work, and relationships sit within that one measure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a religious offering can make unjust gain acceptable. The offering does not erase what was taken.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
to judge, decide, or render a verdict
מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment or justice) belongs to a word family about judging and ordering a case. The verse sets the LORD’s love of judgment against robbery presented with an offering, showing that justice reaches into what people take and what is due.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: to judge or decide
שָׁפַט
The verb shows judgment as an act of deciding what is right, not merely a verdict spoken in the abstract.
shofet: judge
שֹׁפֵט
The person who judges belongs to the same root family as mishpat, linking justice to how claims between people are decided.
גָּזֵל
gazel
GROWS FROM
גזל
to seize, rob, or deprive another
Robbery here names taking from another, not merely an inward attitude. Paired with a burnt offering, it exposes the attempt to place sacred value beside wealth obtained by deprivation; the offering does not change what was seized.
ALSO GROWS
gazal: to rob, seize, or take by force
גָּזַל
The verb makes the taking itself visible beneath the noun robbery.
gezelah: robbery or something seized
גְּזֵלָה
This noun keeps the focus on both the act of taking and what has been taken.
וְנָתַתִּי
wenatatti
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, or place
The verb translated “direct” is וְנָתַתִּי (wenatatti, I will give or set), which can carry the concrete sense of placing or giving. Paired with פְּעֻלָּתָם (pe’ullatam, their work, deed, or recompense), the phrase holds both work and what is due for it within truth.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This is the root verb behind “direct,” adding the sense of giving or placing their work in truth.
mattanah: gift or present
מַתָּנָה
This related noun shows the root’s sense of something given or placed into another’s hands.
THE PATTERN
Worship and prosperity cannot conceal deprivation; the LORD’s justice reaches into what is taken, withheld, and done.
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.Both passages use מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment or justice): here the LORD loves it; there it appears alongside the oppressed, fatherless, and widow. The shared word opens judgment as a lived ordering of relationships, especially where someone can be denied what is due.
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