What Does Jeremiah 49:6 Mean?
And afterward I will turn back the captives of the children of Ammon, says the LORD.
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 afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the LORD.THE KEY
The LORD is named as the one who turns a people back from captivity; return does not begin with the captive.
THE MEANING
“Afterward” holds open a future beyond the present devastation. Even Ammon, a people named under judgment, remains within the promise of return.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that once judgment and captivity have come, a people’s future is closed.
THE ROOT
אָשִׁיב
ashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back or return; in this form, to cause a return or restore.
“turn back” in this verse is ashiv. The Hebrew form behind “bring again” makes the LORD the agent who causes the return. Its sound echoes the nearby word for “captivity,” placing the action of return against the condition it reverses; the words have distinct roots.
ALSO GROWS
shav: A form of the verb “to return.”
שָׁב
It shows the basic movement contained in the promise: turning back toward a former place or state.
teshuvah: A return or an answer.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same root can describe both coming back and answering, giving return the sense of a response to what calls one home.
heshiv: To cause something or someone to return.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form makes clear that restoration here is something the LORD brings about.
שְׁבוּת
shevut
GROWS FROM
שׁבה
shavah
To take captive.
“captives” in this verse is shevut. The noun names the captured condition, and in this restoration phrase can also carry the sense of the people’s fortunes being restored. Its sound echoes אָשִׁיב (ashiv, “I will bring back”), while its root belongs to the language of capture: the promised return reaches into the very condition captivity names.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: To capture or carry away.
שָׁבָה
It reveals captivity as a state produced by being taken from one’s place.
shevi: A captive or the condition of captivity.
שְׁבִי
This branch keeps the focus on people held in a captured condition, the condition the verse promises to reverse.
THE PATTERN
A condition of captivity or loss is not the final word when the LORD acts to restore.
And the LORD returned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the LORD added to all that was Job's, twice over.A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.Whom the heaven must take in until the times of setting upright again of all things, which God has spoken through the mouth of his set-apart prophets from the ages.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.Psalm 126 uses the same Hebrew restoration phrase: the LORD turns captivity toward return. Jeremiah speaks that movement over Ammon, while the psalm sings it over Zion.
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