What Does Ezra 2:1 Mean?
And these are the children of the province who went up out of the exile, those who had been stripped bare, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had stripped bare and carried unto Babylon, and turned again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city.
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
Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city;THE KEY
The Hebrew’s “they returned” is the hinge: people carried away are named again by their movement back to their own places.
THE MEANING
This verse holds being carried away and returning together: displacement is real, and it does not exhaust what can happen. Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem) carries shalom (שָׁלוֹם, shalom, wholeness) within its name, and the return remains particular, each one reaches his own city.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being displaced means you have lost your way home for good, or that returning makes you anonymous.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשׁוּבוּ
wayyashuvu
GROWS FROM
שוב
שׁוּב (shuv): turn back, return.
“turned again” in this verse is wayyashuvu. English “came again” can sound like a second arrival, but וַיָּשׁוּבוּ (wayyashuvu, “they returned”) comes from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn back, return”). The verb places the movement back toward home inside the account of captivity: the people are named not only by what carried them away, but by their return.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: A return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same consonants ש־ו־ב name return as a movement, illuminating the turn back toward Jerusalem and Judah.
meshuvah: A turning away or backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This related form shows the root’s directionality: the same movement can turn away or turn back, sharpening the force of the return in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Return gathers people from scattering into particular belonging.
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.And I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will turn back your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I carried you away.For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.THE THREAD
And I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will turn back your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I carried you away.Ezra’s וַיָּשׁוּבוּ (wayyashuvu, “they returned”) and Jeremiah’s וְשַׁבְתִּי (veshavti, “I will turn back/restore”) come from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn back, return”). Jeremiah opens the movement as gathering from scattered places and bringing people back into place, echoing Ezra’s “every one unto his city.”
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