What Does Zechariah 1:3 Mean in the King James?
Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.
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 same verb names both your return to God and God’s turning toward you, making this a verse of reciprocal movement.
THE MEANING
The invitation is alive now: when you turn toward God, God turns toward you. The same Hebrew verb carries both movements, so the verse presents relationship as a meeting of returns.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that returning to God is a one-sided pursuit is undone: the verse answers your turning with God’s own turning toward you.
THE ROOT
שׁוּבוּ
shuvu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
sh-w-b
To turn back or return.
The command to return and God’s promise to turn toward you use forms of the same verb, שׁוּב (shuv, “turn” or “return”). Hebrew lets one root carry both movements, joining your turning toward God with God’s turning toward you.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: Return or turning.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun keeps the root’s sense of a turning back, giving the verse’s command a wider family of return-language.
meshubah: Turning away, apostasy, or backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
Its connection to the same root shows that turning away and returning are movements named by one seed.
heshiv: Bring back or restore; a causative form of shuv.
הֵשִׁיב
This branch shows how the root can describe not only turning back, but bringing something back.
THE PATTERN
A turning toward God is answered by God’s movement toward the person.
Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.THE THREAD
Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.The Hebrew words translated “return” (שׁוּבוּ, shuvu, “return”) and “backslidings” (מְשׁוּבָה, meshubah, “turning away”) both grow from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn” or “return”). The same root holds both the departure and the turning back, while Jeremiah names healing as the answer to that return.
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