What Does Isaiah 9:14 Mean in the King James?
Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and rush, in one day.
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
What looks like four separate losses is one judgment reaching every level of the order.
THE MEANING
The verse names a judgment whose reach spans Israel’s whole order: head and tail, branch and rush all fall under one cut. Its image crosses rank and kind, and compresses the blow into “one day.” There is no protected remainder in the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that only the top is reached: the image names head and tail, branch and rush together.
THE ROOT
וַיַּכְרֵת
wayyakret
GROWS FROM
כרת
to cut; to cut off
“cut off” in this verse is wayyakret. The verb כרת (karat, “to cut”) also appears in the Hebrew idiom for making a covenant. Here it names severance across the whole order, while its wider use holds cutting and covenant-making in the same word family.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: to cut a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis uses this same verb in the phrase translated “made a covenant,” revealing that the word can mark a bond as well as sever what is cut away.
keritut: cutting off; a writ of divorce
כְּרִיתוּת
This noun carries the root’s sense of severance, sharpening the force of the cut named in the verse.
רֹאשׁ
rosh
GROWS FROM
ראש
head; top or chief; by extension, beginning
The root joins body to rank: the head is both the upper part and the chief position. Paired with the tail, it marks the order from its highest point to its trailing end; branch and rush extend the image through the growth beneath it.
ALSO GROWS
reshit: beginning; first portion
רֵאשִׁית
The same word family reaches the foremost point, showing how “head” can also carry the sense of what comes first.
rashim: heads; chiefs
רָאשִׁים
The plural form makes the positional sense explicit: heads can also be the people who lead.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures judgment on a public order as reaching across its ranks, capacities, and even a single day.
And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:Genesis uses the same Hebrew verb כָּרַת (karat, “to cut”) in the phrase translated “made a covenant.” The connection opens the word’s range: the cut can sever, while the same verb can mark the making of a bond.
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