What Does Psalm 80:14 Mean?
Turn back, we beg you, O God of hosts; gaze down from the heavens and see, and visit this vine.
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
Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;THE KEY
The plea is for the living vine to be seen and attended again, locating its hope in renewed attention to life already present.
THE MEANING
The exposed life in you is pictured as a vine, and its need is stated plainly: God is asked to turn toward it, see it, and attend to it. The prayer holds distance and desire together; divine nearness is still being asked for, while the vine remains named before God.
THE ROOT
שׁוּבָה
shuvah
GROWS FROM
שוב
Turn back, return, turn toward.
“Turn back” in this verse is shuvah. The same root appears earlier in this psalm’s plea, “Turn us again” (Psalm 80:3): God is asked to turn toward the vine, and the people ask to be turned again. The root keeps both requests within one movement of turning.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
The prayer’s first word sets its longing in motion: a turning back toward the vine.
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch makes return more than arrival; it carries the sense of a changed direction.
meshuvah: Turning away, backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
The same root can name turning away as well as returning, making direction central to the verse’s plea.
פְקֹד
peqod
GROWS FROM
פקד
Attend to, take account of, muster or appoint.
The verb translated “visit” can carry the sense of attending to and taking account of; the plea asks for the vine to come under active regard. It reaches beyond a glance: what is seen is counted and cared for.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: Charge, oversight, appointment, or visitation.
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch links visiting with sustained responsibility for what has been placed in one’s care.
paqîd: Appointed officer or overseer.
פָּקִיד
The related word names one assigned to attend to something, giving the verse’s “visit” a shade of purposeful oversight.
THE PATTERN
Divine visitation is active attention that turns toward vulnerable life and acts for it.
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had spoken.Go, gather the elders of Israel, and say to them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, I have surely visited you, and have seen what is done to you in Egypt.Let the LORD God of Israel be spoken well of, for he has looked upon and redeemed his people,THE THREAD
Turn us again, O God, and cause your face to shine, and we will be delivered.Both verses use שוב (shuv, “turn, return”). Here God is asked to turn toward the vine; there, the people ask God to turn them again, holding the vine’s attention and the people’s return in one movement.
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