---
title: Isaiah 40:17 (JPS 1917) — All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him… · tree and pragmatics
description: All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him as things of nought, and vanity. Who acts: nations, Lebanon. Isaiah 40:17 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Isaiah 40:17 · JPS 1917

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All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him as things of nought, and vanity.

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**Who acts:** nations, Lebanon · **What happens:** be, account · **To what, where:** nations

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This is Isaiah 40:17 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nations, Lebanon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:ISA:853
# text = All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are accounted by Him as things of nought, and vanity.
1	All	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	3	det:predet	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	nations	nation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	as	as	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	0	root	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	Him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	accounted	account	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	parataxis	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl:agent	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	nought	nought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	vanity	vanity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | all nations |  |  |  | before Lebanon | as nothing | tree rules |
| 2 | **account** | present · passive | Lebanon | nations *= nation* |  |  |  | as things of nought and vanity | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
כָּל־הַגּוֹיִ֖ם כְּאַ֣יִן נֶגְדּ֑וֹ מֵאֶ֥פֶס וָתֹ֖הוּ נֶחְשְׁבוּ־לֽוֹ׃

[Isaiah 40:17: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Jonathan →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/ISA.40.17/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:ISA:853` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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