Bible Strands
Isaiah 38:19
The living, only the living, can thank You, as I do today; fathers will tell their children about Your faithfulness.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker, positioned in the immediate context as one who has been restored from near-death, addresses a community of believers from the standpoint of recovered life. He makes this declaration on the day of his deliverance to establish a contrast between the dead and the living.
The words — The Hebrew term חַי (chai) literally means "the living" and is doubled for emphasis, while אָב ('av) denotes "a father" who transmits testimony. The verb יוֹדֶךָ (yo.de.kha) carries the literal sense "he gives thanks to you," with the suffix indicating the second-person object.
The thread — The command to transmit divine acts to the next generation parallels Deuteronomy 6:7 and Deuteronomy 4:9, which mandate diligent instruction to children. The explicit connection between continued life and the capacity to praise God aligns with Psalms 119:175, which petitions to live specifically to praise Him.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that gratitude and theological transmission are functions of physical existence, not the realm of the dead. It demands active participation in corporate worship and deliberate teaching to preserve accurate memory of God's faithfulness.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day: the father to the children shall make known thy truth.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 6:7 And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Psalms 119:175 Let me live to praise You; may Your judgments sustain me.
- Deuteronomy 4:9 Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and so that they do not slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.
- Psalms 78:3 that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.
- Genesis 18:19 For I have chosen him, so that he will command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has promised.”
- Exodus 12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this service mean to you?’
- Exodus 13:14 In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- Deuteronomy 11:19 Teach them to your children, speaking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
- Joshua 4:21 Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future, when your children ask their fathers, ‘What is the meaning of these stones?’
- Psalms 118:17 I will not die, but I will live and proclaim what the LORD has done.