Bible Strands
Joel 3:7
Behold, I will rouse them from the places to which you sold them; I will return your recompense upon your heads.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Yahweh addresses the nations that sold Judah and Jerusalem into foreign exile. This declaration functions as a judicial reversal within a prophetic oracle. The words — מְעִירָם (me'iram) = [I] am about to rouse them, and מְכַרְתֶּם (mekhartechem) = you sold. These verbs establish the mechanical trigger for the coming judgment. The thread — The principle of reciprocal repayment appears in Jeremiah 30:16, where devourers will be devoured. The theme of reversing exile and gathering scattered people aligns with the restoration promises in Isaiah 43:5 and Jeremiah 23:8. Why it lands — The text demands recognition that human trafficking of God's people provokes direct divine intervention. It requires readers to accept that judgment operates on the exact principle of the crime committed.
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
Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head:
Cross-references
- Isaiah 43:5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.
- Jeremiah 23:8 Instead they will say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel up out of the land of the north and all the other lands to which He had banished them.’ Then they will dwell once more in their own land.”
- Jeremiah 30:16 Nevertheless, all who devour you will be devoured, and all your adversaries—every one of them—will go off into exile. Those who plundered you will be plundered, and all who raided you will be raided.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:6 After all, it is only right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you,
- Jeremiah 30:10 As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.
- Zechariah 10:6 I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph. I will restore them because I have compassion on them, and they will be as though I had not rejected them. For I am the LORD their God, and I will answer them.
- Judges 1:7 Then Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have gathered the scraps under my table. As I have done to them, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, where he died.
- 1 Samuel 15:33 But Samuel declared: “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the LORD at Gilgal.
- Esther 7:10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the fury of the king subsided.
- Isaiah 11:12 He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.