Bible Strands
Isaiah 57:20
But the wicked are like the storm-tossed sea, for it cannot be still, and its waves churn up mire and muck.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through Isaiah to Israel, contrasting His promised peace with the condition of the wicked. This declaration immediately follows the promise of healing and directly precedes the definitive statement that no peace exists for the wicked.
The words — The Hebrew רְשָׁעִים (re.sha'Im) denotes the wicked, while נִגְרָשׁ (nig.Rash) describes the sea as tossed or driven. The phrase כִּי לֹא יוּכָל הַשָּׁקֵט (ki lo yu.khal hash.shaket) literally translates to "for it is not able to be quiet."
The thread — This imagery of restless wickedness echoes Proverbs 4:16, Job 18:5, and Isaiah 3:11, which all describe the destructive or extinguished state of the unrepentant. The motif directly links to Isaiah 57:21, which explicitly denies peace to this same group.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that moral disorder produces inherent unrest, mirroring the churning mire of a storm-tossed sea. It requires the reader to accept that divine peace is structurally incompatible with unrepentant wickedness.
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
But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.
- Isaiah 3:11 Woe to the wicked; disaster is upon them! For they will be repaid with what their hands have done.
- Job 18:5 Indeed, the lamp of the wicked is extinguished; the flame of his fire does not glow.
- Job 15:20 A wicked man writhes in pain all his days; only a few years are reserved for the ruthless.
- Job 20:11 The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie down with him in the dust.
- Psalms 73:18 Surely You set them on slick ground; You cast them down into ruin.
- Jude 1:12 These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.