What Does Leviticus 25:13 Mean in the King James?
In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.
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
Jubilee reveals restoration as a return to one’s holding, not a fresh acquisition.
THE MEANING
This verse holds return open as a living form of restoration: a person is brought back to the place and inheritance that belong to them. Jubilee names a limit to displacement, so loss does not have to become the final shape of belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once a rightful place is lost, its loss becomes permanent.
THE ROOT
תָּשֻׁבוּ
tashuvu
GROWS FROM
שוב
The root שׁוּב (shuv) means to turn back, return.
The verse’s “return” carries both turning and coming back. English can make this sound like simple relocation; the root shows return itself as the movement that repairs displacement.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn back, return.
שׁוּב
This is the root seed of the verse’s verb, making restoration a movement back toward one’s holding.
heshiv: Bring back, restore.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form shows the same root describing something being brought back, so return can name restoration as well as motion.
אֲחֻזָּתוֹ
achuzzato
GROWS FROM
אחז
The root אָחַז (achaz) means to grasp or hold.
The word translated “possession” grows from a root meaning “hold.” Return reconnects each person with the land they hold as inheritance, so the verse speaks of restored belonging as well as restored property.
ALSO GROWS
achaz: Grasp, hold.
אָחַז
The root makes possession concrete: it is a holding, the place or thing someone has taken hold of.
vayye’achazu: They took possession, settled in it.
וַיֵּאָחֲזוּ
This form appears for Israel settling in the land of Goshen (Genesis 47:27), echoing the link between a holding and a place where people belong.
THE PATTERN
Restoration returns what has been displaced to its place of belonging.
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.THE THREAD
That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.Both verses turn on שׁוּב (shuv, return): here each person returns to a holding; there the LORD turns captivity and gathers back those who were scattered. The shared root reveals jubilee’s restoration of land as part of a wider movement that brings what was displaced back into place.
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