What Does 2 Kings 20:9 Mean?
And Isaiah said, This sign you shall have from the LORD, that the LORD will do the word he has spoken. Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or turn back ten steps?
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
And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the LORD, that the LORD will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?THE KEY
The sign is time’s shadow changing direction, so what seems to move only forward becomes witness to the spoken word.
THE MEANING
Here the spoken promise becomes visible: the shadow may go forward or return, and its movement is offered as a sign of what the LORD says. Even the passing of time, which seems fixed and measurable, becomes legible as part of that promise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This loosens the belief that what has begun moving can only continue in its established direction: the shadow itself is offered as a sign that its course can turn.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yāshūv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back; return.
“turn back” in this verse is yāshūv. The Hebrew word for “go back” comes from שׁוּב (shuv, return), a root that also gives words for restoration. The sign makes reversal legible as restoration: the shadow’s return becomes the visible form of the spoken word being fulfilled.
ALSO GROWS
shāv: Returned; turned back.
שָׁב
This is the direct movement asked of the shadow: to return along its path.
yeshōvēv: Restores; brings back.
יְשׁוֹבֵב
Psalm 23:3 uses this form for restoration, linking return with the restoring of life.
THE PATTERN
A spoken promise becomes recognizable through a sign made visible in the world around the reader.
I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be the mark of a covenant between me and the earth.And he said, Surely I will be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.And this will be a sign for you, that you will find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.THE THREAD
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.The psalm uses יְשׁוֹבֵב (yeshōvēv, “restores”) from שׁוּב (shuv, “return”) for the restoring of נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “living soul”), tying return to restored life. Its “name” is שֵׁם (shem, “nature in a name”), opening restoration as life returning into the LORD’s nature.
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