What Does 2 Chronicles 6:37 Mean?
Yet if they return to their heart in the land where they were taken into captivity, and turn back, and pray to you in the land of their captors, saying, We have missed the mark, we have made crookedness, we have done wickedness;
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Yet if they bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn and pray unto thee in the land of their captivity, saying, We have sinned, we have done amiss, and have dealt wickedly;THE KEY
Return begins before captivity ends: first the heart comes back, then the person turns toward God.
THE MEANING
You can recognize what has gone wrong and turn toward God while still in the place that confines you. The verse links bringing the heart back with turning and praying; recognition is already movement. Captivity describes where you are, not the limit of your return.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you must first escape the place that holds you before you can turn back toward God.
THE ROOT
וְהֵשִׁיבוּ
weheshivu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back, return, or bring back.
“return to their heart” in this verse is weheshivu. The verse uses a form of this root for bringing the heart back, then uses it again for turning toward God. One root links inward recognition and prayer: captivity is where the return begins, not a barrier to it.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To return or turn back.
שׁוּב
This root appears again in the verse as the captives turn toward God.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun preserves the verse’s idea that recognition can become a movement of return.
meshuvah: Turning away; backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
Its opposite direction comes from the same root, showing that turning away and returning belong to one shared movement.
THE PATTERN
Return begins as an inward movement toward truth and continues as a turn toward God, even before circumstances change.
And you shall turn back to the LORD your God, and you shall hear and respond to his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your living soul.Come, and let us turn back to the LORD, for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck, and he will bind us up.And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.THE THREAD
Yet if they return to their heart in the land where they were carried away captive, and turn back, and plead for favor to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, We have missed the mark, we have bent crooked, we have done wickedness;This parallel prayer uses the same Hebrew root for bringing the heart back and turning toward God. The repeated root reveals inward recognition and prayer as two movements of one return, even from captivity.
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