What Does 2 Kings 20:11 Mean in the King James?
And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew verb says the LORD makes the shadow return, reversing the very measure that marked its descent.
THE MEANING
The verse places a measured descent before you and shows it being turned back by the LORD. The same degrees that mark the shadow’s going down now mark its return, so descent is not the final word in the image.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once something has moved downward, its course cannot turn back.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֶׁב
wayyashev
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn, return; in this verb form, cause to return.
“brought ... backward” in this verse is wayyashev. וַיָּשֶׁב (wayyashev, caused to return) comes from שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return): the action is not merely stopping the shadow but turning it back. The English “backward” carries a return within the sign, the shadow retraces the measure by which it went down.
ALSO GROWS
heshiv: Bring back, restore; cause to return.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form shows how the root can describe an agent turning something back, as the LORD does to the shadow.
teshuvah: Turning, return.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of a turn back, echoing the reversal visible in the shadow’s path.
THE PATTERN
Restoration turns what is moving toward loss back toward wholeness.
Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the south.And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.THE THREAD
And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.“Returned” here comes from שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return), the same root behind the LORD’s act of bringing the shadow back. In Exodus, the sea’s return closes over Egypt; here, the shadow’s return becomes a sign, the shared root names the turn, while each verse shows its consequence.
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