Bible Strands
Isaiah 51:14
The captive will soon be freed; he will not die in the dungeon, and his bread will not be lacking.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet addresses a people who have forgotten the Creator and live in daily terror of a destructive oppressor. He delivers a direct promise of imminent deliverance to a captive audience facing imprisonment and starvation.
The words — The text highlights מִהַר (mi.Har), meaning "he will hasten," and יֶחְסַר (yech.Sar), meaning "he will lack," to declare that the captives will be swiftly released without dying in the pit or suffering hunger.
The thread — This promise of rapid liberation from confinement echoes the call to flee Babylon in Isaiah 48:20, the covenantal release of prisoners from the waterless pit in Zechariah 9:11, and the command to remove chains from Jerusalem in Isaiah 52:2.
Why it lands — The passage demands that readers abandon daily fear of human oppressors and anchor their hope in the immediate intervention of the Creator. It requires a practical shift from paralysis to trust in promised physical deliverance.
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 captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 48:20 Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!”
- Zechariah 9:11 As for you, because of the blood of My covenant, I will release your prisoners from the waterless pit.
- Isaiah 52:2 Shake off your dust! Rise up and sit on your throne, O Jerusalem. Remove the chains from your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.
- Acts 12:7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists.
- Isaiah 49:10 They will not hunger or thirst, nor will scorching heat or sun beat down on them. For He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.
- Ezra 1:5 So the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, along with the priests and Levites—everyone whose spirit God had stirred—prepared to go up and rebuild the house of the LORD in Jerusalem.
- Jeremiah 38:6 So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.
- Jeremiah 37:16 So Jeremiah went into a cell in the dungeon and remained there a long time.
- Lamentations 3:53 They dropped me alive into a pit and cast stones upon me.