Bible Strands
Zechariah 10:9
Though I sow them among the nations, they will remember Me in distant lands; they and their children will live and return.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Yahweh speaks to Israel within a prophetic oracle focused on national restoration. The statement occurs immediately after a promise to whistle the scattered flock back together and directly before a description of gathering them from Egypt and Assyria.
The words — The text uses וְ/אֶזְרָעֵ/ם֙ (ve./'ez.ra.'E/m), literally "and I will sow them," and וָ/שָֽׁבוּ\׃ (va./Sha.vu), literally "and they will return." These two verbs establish the chronological sequence of dispersion followed by restoration.
The thread — Ezekiel 6:9 and Nehemiah 1:9 record displaced populations being linked to divine remembrance and subsequent gathering. Isaiah 65:23 extends the motif by describing generations that will not labor in vain under covenant blessing.
Why it lands — The text states that God initiates both the scattering and the return before the people take action. It requires readers to acknowledge that divine promise, not human effort, secures the community's survival and return.
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 sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again.
Cross-references
- Ezekiel 6:9 Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Nehemiah 1:9 but if you return to Me and keep and practice My commandments, then even if your exiles have been banished to the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for My Name.’
- Isaiah 65:23 They will not labor in vain or bear children doomed to disaster; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD—they and their descendants with them.
- 1 Kings 8:47 and when they come to their senses in the land to which they were taken, and they repent and plead with You in the land of their captors, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong; we have acted wickedly,’
- Esther 8:17 In every province and every city, wherever the king’s edict and decree reached, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many of the people of the land themselves became Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.
- Isaiah 65:9 And I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and heirs from Judah; My elect will possess My mountains, and My servants will dwell there.
- Jeremiah 31:27 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and of beast.
- Hosea 2:23 And I will sow her as My own in the land, and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’ I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’ ‘You are My people,’ and they will say, ‘You are my God.’”
- Micah 5:7 Then the remnant of Jacob will be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which do not wait for man or linger for mankind.
- Jeremiah 51:50 You who have escaped the sword, depart and do not linger! Remember the LORD from far away, and let Jerusalem come to mind.”