Hebrew word study: shuv – return, repent

Theresa Newell • August 24, 2021

As we enter the Jewish season of High Holy Days, the words “return,” “repentance,” and “turn back” are paramount.

By Dr. Theresa Newell

It is a good time to examine the Hebrew word shuv , which carries all of these meanings and impl ies movement from one thing or place to another. There is a further, deeper meaning – to repent or turn back to God . This can mean to return to the beginnings –to God Himself .

In searching out the meaning of Hebrew words of the Bible, i t is best to find where this word first appears and what the meaning tells us . Shuv first appears in the Bible in Genesis 3:19. Adam and Eve ha d rebelled against God . The sentence against Adam (whose names comes from a damah , the ground) is this:

“By the sweat of your brow
You will eat your food
Until you return ( shuv ) to the ground ( a damah )
Since from it you were taken ;
For dust ( a damah ) you are and
To dust ( a damah ) you will return ( shuv ).”

Adam began as dust , and he will now, due to his disobedience, return to the substance from which he came. Death thus became the ultimate enemy of adamic mankind . However, we learn the essence of “returning to the beginning of things” from this example.

Shuv in its various forms appears over a thousand times in the Old Testament , especially in Jeremiah and Psalms. In some instances , the word simply means a person returns from the place he had left . For example, God said to Jacob , “Go back ( shuv ) to the land of your fathers ” (Gen 31:3) , or in Deuteronomy 3:20 Moses said, “ E ach of you may go back ( shuv ) to the possession I have given you.”

But this ubiquitous word of scripture also calls for the children of God to leave their idolatrous ways and to return to h im once again , usually followed by a promise from God that h e would then restore them to h imself and h is full blessing. “When you and your children return ( shuv ) to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul . . . then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you” ( Deut 30:2, 3).

Many times, God speaks through the prophets calling his people to return. “Return ( shuv ), faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding” ( Jer 3:22). God speaks of his plan to return his people to their land as in Jeremiah 30:3 : “I will return ( shuv ) my people back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess.” God spoke similar words through the prophet Hosea :

“Return ( shuv ), O Israel, to the LORD your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
I will heal their waywardness
And love them freely,
For my anger has turned away ( shuv ) from them” ( Hos 14:1, 4).

This promise is repeated numerous times using both meanings of shuv – a promise of physical return to the land and restoration to h imself as in Jeremiah 33: 7, 8. It is amazing that God not only calls the Jewish people to return to h im, but h e promises to return to them when they hear, obey and return to the Creator and Father God and to their Messiah Yeshua !

The Hebrew word t eshuvah , “repentance , ” is from this same root . Do you see s-h-u-v in the center of the word? When one has sinned against God or neighbor, one must turn again to God and ask h is forgiveness. This is teshuvah . Maimonides, t he great rabbi of the Middle Ages, wrote that there were three parts to teshuvah : confession, regret and a vow not to repeat the sin. In addition, Maimonides taught that i f one sins against one’s neighbor by theft or slander, one must also provide restitution and ask for (and hopefully receive) forgiveness of the one sinned against ( cf . Lev 6:1-7 , Num 5:5-8 ) .