Bible Strands
Isaiah 60:14
The sons of your oppressors will come and bow down to you; all who reviled you will fall facedown at your feet and call you the City of the LORD, Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD speaks to Zion, declaring a future reversal in which her oppressors will submit to her. This sits between the promise that God's sanctuary will be glorified (60:13) and the statement that she has been "forsaken and despised" (60:15).
The words — Two Hebrew verbs for bowing appear in succession: שְׁחֹחַ (she.Cho.ach, "by bowing down," a participle marking the manner of approach) and הִשְׁתַּחֲוּ (hish.ta.cha.Vu, "they will bow down," a finite form marking the definitive act of prostration). The pairing moves from posture in transit to full collapse at the feet.
The thread — The same reversal appears in Isaiah 49:23 (kings bow facedown and lick the dust) and Isaiah 45:14 (nations bow to the LORD's anointed); Revelation 3:9 applies the pattern to those who falsely claim Israel's identity.
Why it lands — The verse does not merely promise comfort to the oppressed; it promises that the social order will invert, with the former oppressors' own children submitting. It asks the reader to hold the humiliation (60:15) and the vindication (60:14) as both real, without reducing one to a footnote of the other.
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 sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.
Cross-references
- Revelation 3:9 As for those who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews but are liars instead, I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I love you.
- Isaiah 49:23 Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow to you facedown and lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in Me will never be put to shame.”
- Isaiah 45:14 This is what the LORD says: “The products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, along with the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you and will be yours; they will trudge behind you; they will come over in chains and bow down to you. They will confess to you: ‘God is indeed with you, and there is no other; there is no other God.’”
- Hebrews 12:22 Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels
- Isaiah 1:26 I will restore your judges as at first, and your counselors as at the beginning. After that you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.”
- Isaiah 14:1 For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and settle them in their own land. The foreigner will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.
- Isaiah 62:12 And they will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of The LORD; and you will be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.
- Revelation 3:12 The one who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will never again leave it. Upon him I will write the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from My God), and My new name.
- Jeremiah 16:19 O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.
- Psalms 87:3 Glorious things are ascribed to you, O city of God. Selah