Bible Strands
2 Chronicles 30:9
For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and sons will receive mercy in the presence of their captors and will return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful; He will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The address is directed to the northern tribes following a command to submit to the LORD and come to His sanctuary to turn away His fierce anger.
The words — כִּי (ki) = for and לְרַחֲמִים (le-rahamim) = to compassion. The text states that returning to Yahweh causes your relatives and children to receive compassion before their captors.
The thread — The conditional promise of mercy upon return appears in Isaiah 55:7, Micah 7:18, and Deuteronomy 30:2. These passages parallel the requirement to forsake wrongdoing and return to Yahweh to receive pardon.
Why it lands — The verse demands a concrete return to Yahweh rather than continued rebellion. It offers a tangible outcome: familial restoration and relief from captivity contingent on repentance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For if ye turn again unto the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked man forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that He may have compassion, and to our God, for He will freely pardon.
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- Deuteronomy 30:2 and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today,
- Psalms 86:5 For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.
- Psalms 106:46 He made them objects of compassion to all who held them captive.
- Exodus 34:6 Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,
- 1 Kings 8:50 May You forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all the transgressions they have committed against You, and may You grant them compassion in the eyes of their captors to show them mercy.
- Nehemiah 9:17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.
- Leviticus 26:40 But if they will confess their iniquity and that of their fathers in the unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, by which they have also walked in hostility toward Me—
- 2 Chronicles 7:14 and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.