Bible Strands
Isaiah 48:19
Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand, and your offspring as numerous as its grains; their name would never be cut off or eliminated from My presence.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks to Israel through the prophet, contrasting a hypothetical past of obedience with their actual disobedience, immediately before commanding the exiles to depart Babylon.
The words — The Hebrew כַּחֹל (kha.chol) translates literally "like the sand," and יִכָּרֵת (yi.kka.ret) means "it will be cut off," establishing the unfulfilled promise of innumerable offspring and an enduring name.
The thread — This sand metaphor for descendants mirrors the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 22:17 and Jeremiah 33:22, while Isaiah 10:22 later specifies that only a remnant of that sand-like multitude will actually return.
Why it lands — The text presents a conditional blessing that Israel rejected, requiring the reader to acknowledge that lost peace and righteousness were tied directly to heeding divine commands.
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
Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 10:22 Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with righteousness.
- Genesis 22:17 I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.
- Jeremiah 33:22 As the hosts of heaven cannot be counted and as the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so too will I multiply the descendants of My servant David and the Levites who minister before Me.”
- Hosea 1:10 Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’
- Romans 9:27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
- Genesis 13:16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted.
- Joshua 7:9 When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do for Your great name?”
- Ruth 4:10 Moreover, I have acquired Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, to raise up the name of the deceased through his inheritance, so that his name will not disappear from among his brothers or from the gate of his home. You are witnesses today.”
- 1 Kings 9:7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.
- Psalms 9:5 You have rebuked the nations; You have destroyed the wicked; You have erased their name forever and ever.