What Does Ezra 2:1 Mean in the King James?
Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city;
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’s “they returned” is the hinge: people carried away are named again by their movement back to their own places.
THE MEANING
This verse holds being carried away and returning together: displacement is real, and it does not exhaust what can happen. Yerushalayim (יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם, Yerushalayim, Jerusalem) carries shalom (שָׁלוֹם, shalom, wholeness) within its name, and the return remains particular, each one reaches his own city.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being displaced means you have lost your way home for good, or that returning makes you anonymous.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשׁוּבוּ
wayyashuvu
GROWS FROM
שוב
שׁוּב (shuv): turn back, return.
English “came again” can sound like a second arrival, but וַיָּשׁוּבוּ (wayyashuvu, “they returned”) comes from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn back, return”). The verb places the movement back toward home inside the account of captivity: the people are named not only by what carried them away, but by their return.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: A return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same consonants ש־ו־ב name return as a movement, illuminating the turn back toward Jerusalem and Judah.
meshuvah: A turning away or backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This related form shows the root’s directionality: the same movement can turn away or turn back, sharpening the force of the return in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Return gathers people from scattering into particular belonging.
A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.THE THREAD
And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.Ezra’s וַיָּשׁוּבוּ (wayyashuvu, “they returned”) and Jeremiah’s וְשַׁבְתִּי (veshavti, “I will turn back/restore”) come from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn back, return”). Jeremiah opens the movement as gathering from scattered places and bringing people back into place, echoing Ezra’s “every one unto his city.”
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