וַיְבִינֵ֔הוּ (way·ḇî·nê·hū) in Isaiah 40:14: Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
וַיְבִינֵ֔הוּ (way·ḇî·nê·hū) in Isaiah 40:14
Source Word
Isaiah 40:14 token 4 is וַיְבִינֵ֔הוּ, H995, parsed Conj-w | V-Hifil-ConsecImperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with to enlighten Him.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form sharpens the impossibility at the heart of the question: no one stands over the Lord as the giver of understanding.
How To Communicate It
Use the suffix and question frame together so readers hear both the grammar's imagined relation and the passage's emphatic denial of that relation.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The third-person suffix refers to the Lord as the hypothetical object of instruction; the surrounding question expects that no counselor exists.
- A rhetorically imagined action is not a report that God actually acquired knowledge from another.
- The passage's claim about the Creator's unborrowed wisdom does not make human counsel, learning, or accountability unnecessary for creatures.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Hifil
Consecutive imperfect
Third
Masculine
Singular
Conj-w
Third person masculine singular
Inside the rhetorical question, the Hifil asks what supposed counselor could cause the Lord to understand. The singular suffix represents Him as the object, but the question denies that any such instructor exists rather than reporting a past lesson.
The form contributes to Isaiah's sequence of unanswered questions that excludes any counselor as the source of the Lord's justice, knowledge, or understanding.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The verb completes the question about whom the Lord consulted and stands beside further questions about teaching Him justice and knowledge.
Isaiah 40's rhetorical contrast between the incomparable Creator and every supposed counselor, nation, or idol.
It imagines a counselor causing the Lord to understand so that the question can deny that divine wisdom was received from another.
It does not report an actual instructor, make the Lord the grammatical subject of enlightening, identify the suffix with the counselor, or let morphology alone carry the whole doctrine.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The object suffix and rhetorical frame distinguish an imagined act of instruction from the passage's denial that the Lord learned from any counselor.
Hifil in a counselor question with third-person object suffix. imagines a counselor making Him understand in order to deny such dependence. Attached to Whom did He consult. Governed by the unanswered questions about the Lord's wisdom. Question scope, not the verb form alone, supplies the expected negative force.
If the verb means to enlighten Him, is Isaiah saying someone taught the Lord? No. Isaiah asks who could have done so, and the surrounding questions expect the answer that no one instructed the Lord.
Context-sensitive: To enlighten Him represents Hifil causation and the divine object suffix, while English question syntax makes the hypothetical relation clear.
The third masculine singular suffix is the object of enlightenment, not its source. The consecutive-imperfect label does not turn a rhetorical question into narrative history. The passage supports divine incomparability through the whole question sequence, not through a suffix detached from context.
The verb reports God being taught: Read the action inside the question whose expected answer is no one. Him is the counselor: The suffix refers to the Lord, while whom supplies the hypothetical instructor. God needs no counsel, so neither do leaders: Isaiah distinguishes the Creator from creatures and gives no human leader permission to reject counsel or accountability.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
Isaiah 40:14 token 4 is וַיְבִינֵ֔הוּ, H995, parsed Conj-w | V-Hifil-ConsecImperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with to enlighten Him.
בִּין concerns understanding or discernment; in the Hifil it can present causing another to understand or giving instruction.
The interrogative whom supplies the hypothetical counselor, the masculine suffix points to the Lord, and the coordinated questions place enlightenment beside teaching justice and imparting knowledge.
No counselor informs the Lord; the Creator's understanding is not measured by human limits and his wisdom is not borrowed from the nations or their teachers.
Scripture repeatedly commends receiving wise counsel among creatures, while Isaiah distinguishes the Creator as the uncreated source who does not need instruction.
Explain why a positive-looking verb sits inside a negative rhetorical claim, then let the unanswered questions direct attention to the Lord's incomparable wisdom.
Do not narrate a teacher enlightening God, confuse the divine object with the hypothetical subject, discourage human teachability, or build an exhaustive doctrine from this morphology in isolation.