What Does Amos 9:15 Mean?
And I will plant them upon their ground, and they shall no more be uprooted from their ground, which I have given them, says the LORD your God.
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 I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.THE KEY
The Hebrew pairs נטע (nataʿ, plant) with נתש (nathash, uproot): the promise is not just return to land, but a planting whose reversal is ended.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s promise holds out a people planted on their own land, where belonging has ground beneath it. The given land is not a temporary foothold: they are not pulled up from it again.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that even after a place is given, being uprooted is inevitable.
THE ROOT
וּנְטַעְתִּים
ūneṭaʿtîm
GROWS FROM
נטע
n-ṭ-ʿ
Plant; set a living thing into soil.
“plant” in this verse is ūneṭaʿtîm. The verb pictures more than arrival: people are set into the ground to grow and become established. The verse makes that planting durable by placing it beside a promise that uprooting will no longer undo it.
ALSO GROWS
mattaʿ: Planting, plantation
מַטָּע
This branch names planting as an established setting, not only a moment of placement.
netiʿah: Planting
נְטִיעָה
The noun carries the same idea of life being set into the ground.
יִנָּתְשׁוּ
yinnāṯəšû
GROWS FROM
נתש
n-t-sh
Uproot, pull out, tear away.
“uprooted” in this verse is yinnāṯəšû. The verb names the undoing of being planted: people torn out of the ground where they belong. Its negation gives the promise its force, the land remains their ground, without that reversal.
ALSO GROWS
nāṯaš: To uproot, pluck out
נָתַשׁ
The root verb names the force this promise says will no longer remove the people from their land.
wənātaštîm: And I will uproot them
וְנָתַשְׁתִּים
This inflected form makes explicit the same action of tearing people from their place.
אַדְמָתָם
admatam
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾ-d-m
A word family linking ground and soil with the human and the color red.
The word here is a form of אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground or soil), not an abstract territory. Its shared consonants with אָדָם (adam, human) keep people and their ground close in the language.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This is the word family behind “their land,” giving the promise a tangible ground to inhabit.
adam: Human, person
אָדָם
The shared consonants link the people with the soil on which they are planted.
adom: Red
אָדֹם
This branch preserves the earthy color association within the same word family.
THE PATTERN
God’s planting makes belonging durable, taking root in a place or in a life.
For I will set my eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.Those planted in the house of the LORD bloom in the courts of our God.that the Anointed One may settle in your hearts through trust, you being rooted and founded in love.THE THREAD
For I will set my eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.Jeremiah uses the same roots, נטע (nataʿ, plant) and נתש (nathash, uproot), to state the promise Amos gives. The echo makes the promise more than arrival: the people are planted in the land without the reversal of being uprooted.
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