What Does Isaiah 9:10 Mean in the King James?
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
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 speakers answer collapse by promising replacement, but changing the materials leaves their will to build untouched.
THE MEANING
The verse meets collapse with a vow: fallen bricks become hewn stone, and cut sycamores give way to cedars. Its repeated “we will” turns loss into a declaration of greater rebuilding, as though better materials can secure the future. Resolve and defiance sit together: the materials change, while the will to build stays fixed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that replacing what fell with something grander is the same as being made whole.
THE ROOT
נַחֲלִיף
naḥalif
GROWS FROM
חלף
ḥ-l-p
To pass, exchange, replace, or renew.
Here the verb carries the sense of exchanging one material for another: sycamores are replaced with cedars. The same חלף root describes strength being “renewed” in Isaiah 40:31, linking this proposed substitution to the wider word-family of change and renewal; here the speakers claim the act for themselves.
ALSO GROWS
ḥalifot: Changes or turns (Job 10:17).
חֲלִיפוֹת
The word shows change as something successive, like the deliberate replacement declared here.
yaḥalifu: They renew (Isaiah 40:31).
יַחֲלִיפוּ
The same root describes strength being renewed, connecting replacement with renewal while this verse names cedar as the substitute.
THE PATTERN
When people answer insecurity by building more, the new structure can become a claim that they can secure themselves.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.THE THREAD
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.Isaiah 9:10 uses חלף for replacing sycamores with cedars; Isaiah 40:31 uses that same root when strength is “renewed.” The shared word connects outward substitution with inward renewal, while the second verse locates renewed strength in waiting upon the LORD.
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