Isaiah 65:6, 15

v.6: “I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom.” — KJV

v.15: “The Lord GOD shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.” — KJV

Why These Verses Matter

Two Hebrew markers in the same chapter prompted the Targum to introduce “second death”:

Verse 6 — H7999 shalam (to repay, settle, make complete — same root as shalom) “into their bosom” (H2436 cheq — bosom, lap, the body itself). God settles the account into the body. The Targum rendered this as: “I will recompense unto them the wages for their sins, and deliver their bodies to the second death.” The repayment is bodily. The finality of shalam — the account completed, the debt settled — signals this is not ordinary death but the ultimate closing of the ledger.

Verse 15 — H4191 muth in the hiphil (causative): God Himself causes the death. This is not natural mortality — everyone dies naturally. The hiphil form marks divine execution. The Targumist distinguished God-inflicted death from the death that comes to all flesh and rendered it as the “second death.”

These are two of six OT passages where the Targums use “second death.” In every case it means permanent bodily destruction — the death from which there is no resurrection. For the full analysis, see the Revelation 20:14 verse study and the Nature of Hell master study.