What Does Zechariah 1:17 Mean?
Call out again, saying, Thus says the LORD of hosts, My cities will again spread out with good, and the LORD will again comfort Zion, and again choose Jerusalem.
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
Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the LORD shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.THE KEY
The verse’s “prosperity” is goodness, and from that goodness the cities spread outward.
THE MEANING
The LORD comforts Zion and chooses Jerusalem again, joining consolation to renewed belonging. Goodness reaches beyond private relief into the places where life is shared, widening what has felt constricted.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that comfort can ease private pain while the surrounding life must remain diminished: here, consolation accompanies cities spreading and Jerusalem being chosen.
THE ROOT
מִטּוֹב
mi-tov
GROWS FROM
טוב
Good, beneficial, or pleasing.
“with good” in this verse is mi-tov. The phrase translated “through prosperity” is built around goodness: the cities spread from what is good. The verse pictures goodness as a source of shared flourishing, not merely private success.
ALSO GROWS
tuv: Goodness; what is good.
טוּב
This noun makes explicit the goodness carried in the verse’s phrase for prosperity.
tovah: A good thing; goodness.
טוֹבָה
This form shows the root’s good as something that can take shape in life, fitting the verse’s expanding cities.
תְּפוּצֶינָה
tefutsenah
GROWS FROM
פוץ
To scatter, disperse, or spread out.
“spread out” in this verse is tefutsenah. The same root can describe scattering or spreading, so the word holds movement outward within it. Here that movement belongs to cities spreading from goodness, while Zion is comforted and Jerusalem chosen.
ALSO GROWS
nafuts: Scattered or dispersed.
נָפוֹץ
This form appears in Genesis 11:4 for the scattering the builders fear, revealing how the same outward movement can feel like threat or become part of restoration.
hefits: Spread or disseminated.
הֵפִיץ
This form shows the root carrying something outward; here the cities themselves spread.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
Whole or complete.
The city’s name carries the sound and sense of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), with the ending evoking wholeness in both dimensions. The chosen Jerusalem is more than a place: it holds an image of shared life made whole.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the wholeness carried within the city’s name and the promise of restored life.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form links the chosen city with completeness rather than mere survival.
THE PATTERN
Restoration makes room for shared life to expand and for those who are scattered or excluded to be gathered.
For you will burst forth on the right and on the left, and your seed will take hold of the nations and settle the emptied cities.The LORD builds Jerusalem; he gathers the driven-out of Israel.Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the assembly each day those who were being delivered.THE THREAD
And they said, Come, let us build us a city and a tower with its head in the heavens; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered across the face of the whole earth.The same Hebrew root describes the spreading in this verse and the scattering the builders fear in Genesis. There, outward movement is dreaded; here, it accompanies goodness, comfort, and renewed choosing.
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