What Does Jeremiah 31:5 Mean?
Again you will plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria. The planters will plant, and will eat from them as ordinary fruit.
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
Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.THE KEY
Restoration is not merely getting to plant again; it is getting to stay and freely enjoy what you plant.
THE MEANING
You are shown restoration as a life that reaches beyond beginning again: you plant, and you also eat what grows. The fruit is not kept outside ordinary life; it becomes common provision, available to enjoy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that a new beginning still leaves the fruit of your labor out of reach.
THE ROOT
תִּטְּעִי
titte‘i
GROWS FROM
נ־ט־ע
n-ṭ-ʿ
To plant, to set into the soil.
“plant” in this verse is titte‘i. The verse repeats this root in both the act of planting and the people who do it. The picture is not only of land becoming fruitful again, but of its planters remaining there to see and enjoy that fruit.
ALSO GROWS
neti‘ah: Planting; a planted growth.
נְטִיעָה
It carries the act of setting growth into the ground that begins the verse’s promise.
matta‘: A planting; a plantation.
מַטָּע
It names the planted place as something established to grow, not a passing effort.
וְחִלֵּלוּ
veḥillēlū
GROWS FROM
ח־ל־ל
ḥ-l-l
To make common or profane; to treat as open to ordinary use.
“ordinary fruit” in this verse is veḥillēlū. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of making something common, while the KJV renders the result as eating the fruit as common things. The wording brings the harvest into ordinary life: it can be used and enjoyed, rather than kept out of reach.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common; non-sacred.
חֹל
It illuminates the verse’s image of fruit entering ordinary use.
ḥillul: Profanation; treating something as common.
חִלּוּל
It shares the verb’s root and clarifies the shift from set-apart status to common use.
שֹׁמְרוֹן
Shomron
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ר
sh-m-r
To watch, keep, or guard; the place-name Shomron is traditionally associated with this root.
The name Samaria carries a watchful or guarded resonance in Hebrew. The verse places its restored planting on these heights, where vines can grow and their fruit can be enjoyed.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A watcher or keeper.
שֹׁמֵר
It makes the watchful resonance in Shomron audible.
mishmeret: A watch, charge, or duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shares the root’s sense of keeping and guarding, adding a note of care to the place-name.
THE PATTERN
Restoration includes remaining present to enjoy the fruit of what has been planted.
And I will turn back the captives of my people Israel, and they shall build the emptied cities and settle in them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine. They shall make gardens and eat their fruit.They will build houses and settle in them, and they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.Who ever serves as a soldier on his own rations? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the flock's milk?THE THREAD
Build houses and settle in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit.Jeremiah 29:5 uses the same planting root and pairs planting directly with eating the fruit. That shared wording opens this verse’s promise as work that reaches its own harvest and enjoyment.
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