What Does Isaiah 31:6 Mean?
Turn back to him, from whom the children of Israel have sunk deep into turning aside.
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
Turn ye unto him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted.THE KEY
The verse sets a turn back directly against a departure gone deep, making return the answer to the very motion that has carried the reader away.
THE MEANING
The call reaches you where turning away has become deep: the direction back toward the One you have left remains open. The verse holds the depth of departure in view while placing return beside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deep estrangement means the way back is closed.
THE ROOT
שׁוּבוּ
shuvu
GROWS FROM
שוב
shuv
To return, turn back.
“turn back” in this verse is shuvu. The command names a change of direction, not merely a change of feeling. This root family can also name backsliding, so return answers departure as a reversal of motion.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To return, turn back.
שׁוּב
This is the root motion carried by the command in the verse: turning toward the One left behind.
meshubah: Backsliding, apostasy.
מְשׁוּבָה
The same root family can describe turning away, showing how return reverses a direction rather than erasing its history.
סָרָה
sarah
GROWS FROM
סור
sur
To turn aside, depart.
The word translated “revolted” carries the motion of turning aside. The verse places that departure opposite the call to turn back.
ALSO GROWS
sur: To turn aside, depart.
סוּר
This verb exposes the movement beneath the idea of revolt: a turning away.
sar: Turned aside, departed.
סָר
This form describes one who has moved away, giving the verse’s departure a directional shape.
הֶעְמִיקוּ
he'emiqu
GROWS FROM
עמק
ʿamaq
To be deep, deepen.
“sunk deep” in this verse is he'emiqu. The word gives the turning aside depth: this is no shallow departure. Yet the call to return stands in the same sentence without denying how deep the departure has gone.
ALSO GROWS
ʿamoq: Deep.
עָמֹק
This adjective keeps the image of depth present in the verse’s description of departure.
ʿemeq: Valley, lowland.
עֵמֶק
The same root family gives depth a landscape form, making “deeply” more than a measure of intensity.
THE PATTERN
A deeply established departure can still be addressed by a call to return.
Turn back, O turned-away children, and I will heal your turnings-away. Look, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God.Turn back, Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled in your crookedness.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
Turn back, O turned-away children, and I will heal your turnings-away. Look, we come to you, for you are the LORD our God.Jeremiah uses שׁוּב (shuv, “return”) in the call to return and in the related word translated “backslidings,” so both directions belong to one root family. By placing healing beside return, Jeremiah opens Isaiah’s call as a movement toward restoration.
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