What Does Genesis 14:16 Mean?
And he turned back all the goods, and also turned back his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.
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 he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.THE KEY
The same verb gathers the goods and every person into one return.
THE MEANING
You see recovery named in full: the goods return, and Lot, the women, and the people return with them. The repeated return verb gathers possessions and people into one movement, making restoration larger than property alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that restoration is only about recovering possessions falls away here: the verse names Lot, the women, and the people as well.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֶׁב
vayyāshev
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back or return; in these forms, to bring or cause something to return.
“turned back” in this verse is vayyāshev. English uses “brought back” and “brought again,” but both verbs come from the same root of return. That repetition binds the goods, Lot, the women, and the people into one act of recovery.
ALSO GROWS
shav: Returns, turns back
שָׁב
This simpler form shows the root’s basic movement: what has gone away comes back.
teshuvah: Return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same movement of return, revealing that the verse’s recovery is rooted in turning back what was taken.
hēshīv: Bring back, restore
הֵשִׁיב
This is the same causative form used in the verse: someone brings what was taken back into reach.
THE PATTERN
Restoration gathers people and what belongs with them into the same return.
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.Thus says the LORD, Hold back your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, for there are wages for your work, says the LORD, and they will turn back from the land of the enemy.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.“Turned again” comes from the same Hebrew root, שׁוּב (shuv), meaning to turn back or return. Genesis gathers the people and goods into that return; the Psalm uses the same root for a people brought back from captivity.
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