What Does Jeremiah 31:17 Mean?
And there is hope for your end, declares the LORD, that your children will turn back to their own border.
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 there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border.THE KEY
Hope here is a tether to a specific future: the children return to the boundary that belongs to them.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the ache of separation with a future that remains open: the children come back to their own border. Their return is concrete belonging, not merely the feeling that things may improve.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that separation makes return impossible is undone: the children are still named as returning to what is theirs.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוָה
tiqvah
GROWS FROM
קוה
qavah
The verb קָוָה (qavah) means to wait for, look toward, or expect; תִּקְוָה (tiqvah) means hope or expectation, and can also mean a cord or line.
The Hebrew noun תִּקְוָה (tiqvah, hope or cord) is also the word for the scarlet line in Joshua 2:18. English separates assurance from tether, while this word can hold both the future being awaited and a line stretched toward it.
ALSO GROWS
qavah: To wait for, look for, or expect.
קָוָה
The hope noun grows from a verb of directed expectation, not an unmoored mood.
tiqvah: Hope, expectation; also a cord or line.
תִּקְוָה
Joshua 2:18 uses this same noun for Rahab’s scarlet line, giving hope a tangible image of connection to a future not yet reached.
וְשָׁבוּ
weshavu
GROWS FROM
שוב
shuv
To turn back or return.
“turn back” in this verse is weshavu. The children shall שׁוּב (shuv, return) to their גְּבוּל (gevul, border or territory): the movement ends in a place of belonging, not just a changed feeling. Return means coming back to what is theirs.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch carries the same movement of coming back that the verse promises for the children.
meshûvah: Turning away or backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
The root can describe movement away as well as back; here the direction is explicitly toward their own border.
THE PATTERN
Hope keeps the future joined to the present while the promised return is not yet visible.
Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you lowered us. And you shall gather to yourself, into your house, your father, and your mother, and your brothers, and all your father's household.For there is a cord for a tree; if it is cut down, it sprouts again, and its suckling shoot does not stop.For in hope we have been delivered; but hope that is seen is not hope, for why would anyone still hope for what he sees?THE THREAD
Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this cord of scarlet thread in the window through which you lowered us. And you shall gather to yourself, into your house, your father, and your mother, and your brothers, and all your father's household.The Hebrew word תִּקְוָה (tiqvah, hope or cord) is rendered “line” in Joshua and “hope” here. There it marks a household through a dangerous crossing; the shared word makes hope a tether to a real future, not an abstract mood.
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