What Does Jeremiah 31:21 Mean?
Set up for yourself waymarks, make for yourself high heaps. Set your heart toward the raised road, the way you walked. Turn back, virgin of Israel, turn back to these your cities.
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
Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.THE KEY
The road home follows the path you have already walked, and the verse marks it so you can turn back.
THE MEANING
The way back is concrete: it has markers, a raised road, and a direction held in the heart. The path already traveled remains legible, and the repeated call to turn back speaks to the reader now. Return moves toward the cities still named as yours.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that departure makes return impossible is undone: the road is still marked, and the destination remains.
THE ROOT
שׁוּבִי
shuvi
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
The three-letter root שׁוּב (shuv) means to turn back or return; שׁוּבִי (shuvi) means “turn back” or “return.”
“turn back” in this verse is shuvi. The same root sounds twice in the call, making return the verse’s central motion. Its branches hold both turning back and being brought back, so the road is not just a direction: it is a restoration of movement toward home.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This familiar noun preserves the turning motion inside the idea of return.
heshiv: bring back, restore
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form shows the same root can describe something being brought back toward its place.
מְסִלָּה
mesillah
GROWS FROM
ס־ל־ל
s-l-l
The root סָלַל (salal) means to raise or build up; מְסִלָּה (mesillah) is a raised road or highway.
“raised road” in this verse is mesillah. The highway is not merely a direction to follow: its root carries the sense of a way raised and made passable. Set beside the markers and heaps, return appears as a route made visible underfoot.
ALSO GROWS
salal: raise, build up
סָלַל
The verb names the making of an elevated route, illuminating the work implied by the highway.
solelah: siege ramp, raised mound
סֹלְלָה
This raised structure shares the root and makes the highway’s built-up quality tangible.
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
ד־ר־ך
d-r-k
The root דָּרַךְ (darakh) means to tread or step; דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) means a way or path.
A way is ground made into a path by treading it. The phrase “the way which thou wentest” points to a route already traveled: the return does not begin from nowhere.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: tread, step
דָּרַךְ
The verb gives the path its bodily origin: a way is something walked across.
derekh: way, road, path
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun names the route that remains available to be traveled again.
THE PATTERN
The path of return is made visible and remains open after departure.
A voice calls out in the wilderness, Clear the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a raised road for 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
And there is hope for your end, declares the LORD, that your children will turn back to their own border.The Hebrew verb translated “shall come again” comes from שׁוּב (shuv), the same root repeated as “turn again” here. Jeremiah names the same return first as hope and then as a marked route back to the cities.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us