Bible Strands
Amos 9:14
I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses Israel in a prophetic oracle of restoration, positioned between a vision of unprecedented agricultural abundance (9:13) and a guarantee of permanent, unuprooted settlement (9:15). The speaker is Yahweh, the audience is the exiled or dispersed people of Israel, and the moment is a promised future reversal of judgment.
The words — וְשַׁבְתִּי (ve.shav.Ti) translates "and I will turn back" or restore, marking the divine initiative that reverses exile. The phrase עָרִים נְשַׁמּוֹת ('a.Rim ne.sha.mOt) reads literally "cities desolated," where נְשַׁמּוֹת functions as a participle modifying עָרִים, not as the direct object of בָּנוּ (va.Nu, "they will rebuild").
The thread — This restoration pattern appears in Jeremiah 30:3 and 30:18, which parallel the return from captivity and the renewal of Jacob's tents, and Isaiah 61:4, which describes rebuilding ancient ruins and devastated places.
Why it lands — The text states that God initiates the return from captivity before detailing human agricultural activity, establishing restoration as covenant action rather than human achievement. It requires the reader to acknowledge that economic and territorial recovery follows divine reversal, not precedes it.
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
And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 61:4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins; they will restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations.
- Jeremiah 30:3 For behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will restore from captivity My people Israel and Judah, declares the LORD. I will restore them to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.’”
- Jeremiah 30:18 This is what the LORD says: “I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents and have compassion on his dwellings. And the city will be rebuilt on her own ruins, and the palace will stand in its rightful place.
- Ezekiel 28:26 And there they will dwell securely, build houses, and plant vineyards. They will dwell securely when I execute judgments against all those around them who treat them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God.’”
- Jeremiah 31:28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, to demolish, destroy, and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD.
- Psalms 53:6 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come from Zion! When God restores His captive people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad!
- Isaiah 65:21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
- Ezekiel 37:25 They will live in the land that I gave to My servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They will live there forever with their children and grandchildren, and My servant David will be their prince forever.
- Isaiah 62:8 The LORD has sworn by His right hand and by His mighty arm: “Never again will I give your grain to your enemies for food, nor will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled.
- Jeremiah 31:23 This is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “When I restore them from captivity, they will once again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities: ‘May the LORD bless you, O righteous dwelling place, O holy mountain.’