Bible Strands
Isaiah 5:13
Therefore My people will go into exile for their lack of understanding; their dignitaries are starving and their masses are parched with thirst.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Isaiah pronounces judgment to Judah following a scene of frivolous feasting that disregards the Lord’s work. The prophecy marks a turning point where divine patience yields to enforced removal from the land.
The words — The Hebrew גָּלָ֥ה (ga.Lah) means “it will go into exile,” while מִ/בְּלִי־ דָ֑עַת (mi./be.li- Da.'at) literally renders “because of no knowledge.” These terms anchor the cause-and-effect structure of the declaration.
The thread — This linkage between lost knowledge and national ruin echoes Hosea 4:6, where rejection of knowledge brings divine rejection, and Isaiah 1:3, which contrasts animal instinct with Israel’s failure to understand. The desolation motif continues into Isaiah 1:7, where foreign invaders consume the land.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that spiritual blindness precedes physical collapse. Readers must confront the direct correlation between rejecting divine instruction and enduring the consequences of abandonment.
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
Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
Cross-references
- Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you as My priests. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
- Isaiah 1:3 The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand.”
- Isaiah 1:7 Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers.
- Isaiah 27:11 When its limbs are dry, they are broken off. Women come and use them for kindling; for this is a people without understanding. Therefore their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.
- John 3:19 And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light because their deeds were evil.
- Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
- Isaiah 42:22 But this is a people plundered and looted, all trapped in caves or imprisoned in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue them, and loot with no one to say, “Send them back!”
- Jeremiah 8:7 Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
- Jeremiah 14:3 The nobles send their servants for water; they go to the cisterns, but find no water; their jars return empty. They are ashamed and humiliated; they cover their heads.
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”