What Does Isaiah 66:20 Mean in the King James?
And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.
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 Hebrew verb for “bring” means to cause to come in: the nations carry your scattered kin into the LORD’s presence, and their arrival is itself called an offering.
THE MEANING
Your kin are gathered from every nation, by many routes, toward the LORD’s mountain. Their coming is described as an offering, like one carried in a clean vessel into the LORD’s house. Jerusalem is the destination of this movement toward wholeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that distance or foreignness puts your kin beyond the LORD’s presence: the verse pictures them gathered from every nation and brought near.
THE ROOT
וְהֵבִיאוּ
vehēviʾu
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come or enter; in the causative form, to cause someone to come in or bring them.
The verb for “bring” grows from בוא (bo, come or enter): it frames this as making a way for people to arrive in the LORD’s presence. The people themselves, not only something carried alongside them, are named as the offering.
ALSO GROWS
hēvi: Bring in; cause to come.
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes the movement into the LORD’s presence part of the verse’s central image.
māvo: Entrance; entryway.
מָבוֹא
The same root can name an entrance, echoing the movement from the nations into the house of the LORD.
קָדְשִׁי
qodshi
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart; to make sacred.
“holy” in this verse is qodshi. The mountain is called set apart, while the LORD’s house is the destination of the offering; the root links the place and the act of presentation through sacred purpose. What is brought from the nations enters a space marked as belonging to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Set-apartness; sacredness.
קֹדֶשׁ
It names the quality carried by the “holy mountain” in this verse.
miqdash: Sanctuary; set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch connects the mountain’s set-apart character with the house where the offering is brought.
טָהוֹר
tahor
GROWS FROM
טהר
ṭ-h-r
To be clean or pure.
The root holds both a state of cleanness and the process of making clean. Here the vessel is a clean carrier for the offering, so the verse presents the gathered people within an image of prepared, fitting presentation.
ALSO GROWS
tahorah: Purity; cleanness.
טָהֳרָה
This noun names the state that the vessel embodies in the verse’s image.
tiher: Cleanse; purify.
טִהֵר
This verb shows the same root as an action, alongside the clean vessel’s state.
THE PATTERN
People scattered across boundaries are gathered and presented in the LORD’s presence as an offering.
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts.That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.THE THREAD
Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.Isaiah 60:4 uses בוא (bo, come or enter) in “they come to thee,” the same root behind “they shall bring” here. The shared root ties the gathering of kin from far away to their arrival in the LORD’s presence.
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