What Does Isaiah 7:22 Mean in the King James?

And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

Isaiah 7:22 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse lets abundance and aftermath occupy the same table: milk yields butter, and the food belongs to those left in the land.

THE MEANING

The verse holds provision and diminishment together: milk is abundant enough to become butter, and honey joins the food of those still in the land. Its table carries sweetness and survival at once, without making the land seem untouched.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A diminished landscape cannot still hold abundance.

THE ROOT

הַנּוֹתָר

han-notar

GROWS FROM

יתר

yathar

To remain, be left over, or exceed.

The word translated “left” comes from a root that can mean both what remains and what exceeds. That echo lets the survivors’ remainder sit beside the verse’s abundance: what is left is not only loss, but also what still sustains life.

ALSO GROWS

yeter: Remainder, excess, or surplus.

יֶתֶר

This branch carries both senses in the verse: the people who remain and the abundance from which they eat.

yitron: Advantage, profit, or gain.

יִתְרוֹן

This branch shows the root’s range beyond mere survival: what remains can also be what is left over as gain.

THE PATTERN

The land’s condition becomes legible through the food it yields and what remains to be eaten.

And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Exodus 3:8 · KJVMilk and honey name a land whose produce signals abundance.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

Isaiah 7:23 · KJVVines give way to briers and thorns, showing the land’s altered condition through what it produces.

When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

John 6:12 · KJVThe food left after the meal is gathered, making what remains part of the story of provision.

THE THREAD

And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:

Isaiah 4:3 · KJV

The phrase “he that is left” uses the same Hebrew form, ⁨הַנּוֹתָר⁩ (han-notar), from ⁨יתר⁩ (yathar), as “that is left” in this verse. Isaiah links those remaining in the land with those remaining in Zion, extending the word from a condition of survival to the people counted among the living.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us