What Does Leviticus 25:13 Mean?
In this ram's horn year you shall turn back, each to his holding.
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
In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession.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.
“turn back” in this verse is tashuvu. 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.
“holding” in this verse is achuzzato. 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 you shall set apart the fiftieth year, and proclaim a free flowing through all the land to all who settle in it. It shall be a ram's horn year for you, and you shall turn back each to his holding, and each to his family you shall turn back.Then the LORD your God will turn back your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will turn back and gather you from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.THE THREAD
Then the LORD your God will turn back your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will turn back and gather you from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.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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