What Does Isaiah 7:20 Mean in the King James?
In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.
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 hired razor reveals the danger hidden in borrowed power: the instrument brought in can strip every visible marker of dignity.
THE MEANING
The blade passes over the head, the hair of the feet, and the beard; no part of the body remains outside the stripping. The verse speaks now wherever security rests in a power brought in from beyond one’s reach: that power can become the force that exposes and humiliates.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a power you enlist stays only a tool under your control; here, the hired instrument becomes the blade that strips away every marker of dignity.
THE ROOT
שְׂכִירָה
śekîrāh
GROWS FROM
שכר
ś-k-r
to hire, or to give wages
The Hebrew marks this as a hired razor: the stripping comes through a force brought in for use. The same root names wages and the person hired, so the image carries a relationship of exchange whose consequences extend beyond the contract.
ALSO GROWS
śākār: Wages or payment for work.
שָׂכָר
The razor is associated with a transaction: the force that does the stripping is hired.
śākîr: A person engaged for wages.
שָׂכִיר
The root can name both the payment and the one brought in to act, making the hired power more than a passive object.
זָקָן
zāqān
GROWS FROM
זקן
z-q-n
to be old or grow old
The Hebrew word for beard shares its root with words for age and elderhood, linking the beard with grown status and standing. Shaving it makes the humiliation visible at the level of public identity, not just bodily grooming.
ALSO GROWS
zāqēn: An elder or an old person.
זָקֵן
This branch links the beard to age and standing, which the razor removes along with the hair.
ziqnāh: Old age.
זִקְנָה
The shared root places the beard within a wider cluster of age and maturity, giving its removal social weight.
THE PATTERN
When bodily covering carries public honor, stripping or removing it makes humiliation visible.
And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.THE THREAD
Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.The beard is זָקָן (zāqān, “beard”), from זקן (z-q-n, “to be old”), a root also found in זָקֵן (zāqēn, “elder”). In this verse, shaving the beard is an intentional public insult; the shared root reveals that Isaiah’s razor strips standing as well as hair.
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