What Does Isaiah 8:21 Mean in the King James?
And they shall pass through it, hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.
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
Hunger can strip away perceived weight: the curse in this verse makes both king and God seem insignificant.
THE MEANING
When need presses you, hunger can harden into rage aimed at both ruler and God. The upward look follows the curse, but it does not prove that the gaze has found clarity; the next verse turns toward the earth and sees distress and darkness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that looking upward is proof of trust or clear sight: here, the upward glance occurs alongside rage and cursing.
THE ROOT
וְקִלֵּל
weqillēl
GROWS FROM
קָלַל
To be light or make light of; to treat as slight or contemptible. The root also forms words for cursing.
English can make “curse” sound like an outburst alone; this root also carries the sense of making someone light or insignificant. The hungry person’s rage reaches both king and God by stripping them of perceived weight.
ALSO GROWS
qālal: To be light, or to make light of something; to treat it as slight.
קָלַל
This basic sense reveals the contempt beneath the curse in the verse.
qelālāh: A curse.
קְלָלָה
The noun for a curse grows from the same root, tying the spoken harm to making light of someone.
yēqallû: They shall be lightly esteemed; they shall become light.
יֵקַלּוּ
The same root appears in 1 Samuel 2:30, where contempt is expressed as being lightly esteemed.
וְהִתְקַצַּף
wehitqatsaf
GROWS FROM
קָצַף
To be indignant or enraged; the related noun means wrath.
“Fret themselves” can sound like inward worry in English, while this Hebrew form describes becoming enraged. The verse’s movement is from hunger into anger, then from anger into a curse.
ALSO GROWS
qāṣap̄: To become angry or indignant.
קָצַף
This is the verb behind “fret themselves,” naming the anger that hunger stirs.
qeṣep̄: Wrath or indignation.
קֶצֶף
The related noun holds the same anger-root as a state of wrath, clarifying the force of the reaction.
THE PATTERN
Hunger exposes where distress goes next: it can become accusation, a cry for deliverance, or pressure to meet the need immediately.
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.THE THREAD
Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.Isaiah’s “curse” and Samuel’s “lightly esteemed” share קָלַל (qālal, to be light or make light of). The link shows contempt as a stripping of weight, and Isaiah depicts hunger turning that contempt toward both king and God.
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