What Does Zechariah 8:20 Mean?
Thus says the LORD of hosts. Yet peoples shall come, and the ones who settle in many cities.
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
Thus saith the LORD of hosts; It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities:THE KEY
The future takes shape as people arrive from many distinct homes, not as an abstract promise floating above them.
THE MEANING
What is still ahead reaches beyond the people and places you can see now. People from many cities enter the scene, and the promised future takes shape through their arrival.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the future is limited to the people and places already in view loosens here: the verse opens it to arrivals from many cities.
THE ROOT
יָבֹאוּ
yavo'u
GROWS FROM
בוא
come, enter, arrive
The Hebrew יָבֹאוּ (yavo’u, “they will come”) grows from בוא (bo, “come, enter”). The same root forms words for bringing and entrance, so this promised future is expressed as a movement into view, made concrete by people arriving from many cities.
ALSO GROWS
hevi: bring, cause to come
הֵבִיא
This form carries the same movement from the side of bringing: coming and bringing belong to one root family.
mavo: entrance, entry
מָבוֹא
This branch makes the root’s sense of arrival visible as entering a place.
וְיֹשְׁבֵי
ve-yoshevei
GROWS FROM
ישב
sit, dwell, remain
“the ones who settle” in this verse is ve-yoshevei. The inhabitants are יֹשְׁבֵי (yoshevei, “dwellers”), from ישב (yashav, “sit, dwell”). They are not an abstract crowd but people already settled in many cities; the promised movement begins from within established lives and places.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: sit, dwell, remain
יָשַׁב
The verb names the settled state of the people who are now described as coming.
moshav: dwelling, settlement
מוֹשָׁב
This branch gives a dwelling or settled place its name, echoing the cities from which these inhabitants come.
THE PATTERN
A promised future widens the scene as people from many settlements arrive.
Also, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to soften the face of the LORD.And many peoples shall go and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will aim us along his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion the instruction shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.After this I see, and look, a great crowd that no one can number, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, wrapped in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.THE THREAD
Also, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to soften the face of the LORD.The same root בוא (bo, “come, enter”) appears in both verses. Verse 20 names inhabitants of many cities; verse 22 shows their arrival as many peoples and nations coming to seek the LORD.
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