What Does Isaiah 66:12 Mean in the King James?
For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees.
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 verse turns wholeness and the nations’ weight into a current that nourishes, carries, and delights a child.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s promise reaches the reader as a continuing current of wholeness, with the weight of the nations moving within it. The image becomes bodily and intimate: a child feeds, is carried at the mother’s side, and is delighted over on her knees. Care here has the scale of a river and the closeness of being held.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the idea that dependence is the opposite of flourishing: here, feeding and being carried belong within the promise.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole, complete, or sound.
Alongside peace, shalom carries the sense of wholeness. Extended like a river, that wholeness appears as an ongoing supply that reaches into the intimate needs of life.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the wholeness within shalom audible: the river brings a condition of being made whole.
shillem: Repay, recompense, or make good
שִׁלֵּם
The same root extends to making good what is due or lacking, giving shalom a shade of repair and restoration.
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
To be heavy or weighty.
Alongside “glory,” kavod carries the sense of weight: substance, value, or consequential presence. The river image lets the nations’ weight join the current as part of the city’s abundance.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the substance in kavod concrete: what has weight has presence and consequence.
kibbed: Honor, treat as weighty
כִּבֵּד
To honor is to accord weight and importance, linking kavod’s sense of honor with the weight of the nations in the verse.
תִּנָּשְׂאוּ
tinnase'u
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“borne” in this verse is tinnase'u. Nasa holds lifting, carrying, and bearing a load together. The child is not only transported; their weight is taken up by the one holding them.
ALSO GROWS
nasi: Prince, leader; one elevated
נָשִׂיא
The root also names an elevated leader, linking being raised with being carried.
massa: Load, burden
מַשָּׂא
A burden is what gets carried; here, the child is held and their weight is borne by another.
THE PATTERN
Divine wholeness is pictured as a flowing supply whose arrival makes life flourish.
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.THE THREAD
Thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.Isaiah 49:22 uses the same root נשא (nasa, lift and carry): the hand is lifted toward the nations, and daughters are carried on shoulders. This verse brings that lifting close to the body, where a child rests at her side.
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