'Back' in the Bible

They say, If a man puts away his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's, will he go back to her again? will not that land have been made unclean? but though you have been acting like a loose woman with a number of lovers, will you now come back to me? says the Lord.

So the showers have been kept back, and there has been no spring rain; still your brow is the brow of a loose woman, you will not let yourself be shamed.

And I said, After she has done all these things she will come back to me; but she did not. And her false sister Judah saw it.

But for all this, her false sister Judah has not come back to me with all her heart, but with deceit, says the Lord.

Go, and give out these words to the north, and say, Come back, O Israel, though you have been turned away from me, says the Lord; my face will not be against you in wrath: for I am full of mercy, says the Lord, I will not be angry for ever.

Come back, O children who are turned away, says the Lord; for I am a husband to you, and I will take you, one from a town and two from a family, and will make you come to Zion;

Come back, you children who have been turned away, and I will take away your desire for wandering. See, we have come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

If you will come back, O Israel, says the Lord, you will come back to me: and if you will put away your disgusting ways, you will not be sent away from before me.

For this put on haircloth, with weeping and loud crying: for the burning wrath of the Lord is not turned back from us.

The earth will be weeping for this, and the heavens on high will be black: because I have said it, and I will not go back from it; it is my purpose, and it will not be changed.

O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

Through your evil-doing these things have been turned away, and your sins have kept back good from you.

But they took no note and did not give ear, but were guided by the thoughts and the pride of their evil hearts, going back and not forward.

Further, you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Will those who are falling not be lifted up again? will he who has gone away not come back?

Why do these people of Jerusalem go back, for ever turning away? they will not give up their deceit, they will not come back.

Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

They are turned back to the sins of their fathers, who would not give ear to my words; they have gone after other gods and become their servants: the people of Israel and the people of Judah have not kept the agreement which I made with their fathers.

And it will come about that, after they have been uprooted, I will again have pity on them; and I will take them back, every man to his heritage and every man to his land.

I have seen your disgusting acts, even your false behaviour and your cries of desire and your loose ways on the hills in the field. Unhappy are you, O Jerusalem, you have no desire to be made clean; how long will you be in turning back to me?

Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads.

You have given me up, says the Lord, you have gone back: so my hand is stretched out against you for your destruction; I am tired of changing my purpose.

For this cause the Lord has said, If you will come back, then I will again let you take your place before me; and if you give out what is of value and not that which has no value, you will be as my mouth: let them come back to you, but do not go back to them.

But, By the living Lord, who took the children of Israel up out of the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had sent them: and I will take them back again to their land which I gave to their fathers.

Now, then, say to the men of Judah and to the people of Jerusalem, This is what the Lord has said: See, I am forming an evil thing against you, and designing a design against you: let every man come back now from his evil way, and let your ways and your doings be changed for the better.

I will send them in flight, as from an east wind, before the attacker; I will let them see my back and not my face on the day of their downfall.

The Lord God of Israel has said, See, I am turning back the instruments of war in your hands, with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and the Chaldaeans, who are outside the walls and shutting you in; and I will get them together inside this town.

Let there be no weeping for the dead, and make no songs of grief for him: but make bitter weeping for him who has gone away, for he will never come back or see again the country of his birth.

For this is what the Lord has said about Shallum, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in place of Josiah his father, who went out from this place: He will never come back there again:

But to the land on which their soul's desire is fixed, they will never come back.

And I will get the rest of my flock together from all the countries where I have sent them, and will make them come back again to their resting-place; and they will have offspring and be increased.

And in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a shocking thing; they are untrue to their wives, walking in deceit, and they make strong the hands of evil-doers, so that a man may not be turned back from his evil-doing: they have all become like Sodom to me, and its people like Gomorrah

The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

For I will keep my eyes on them for good, and I will take them back again to this land, building them up and not pulling them down, planting them and not uprooting them.

And I will give them a heart to have knowledge of me, that I am the Lord: and they will be my people, and I will be their God: for they will come back to me with all their heart.

Saying, Come back now, everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, and keep your place in the land which the Lord has given to you and to your fathers, from times long past even for ever:

This is what the Lord has said: Take your place in the open square of the Lord's house and say to all the towns of Judah, who come into the Lord's house for worship, everything I give you orders to say to them: keep back not a word;

And they took Uriah out of Egypt and came back with him to Jehoiakim the king; who put him to death with the sword, and had his dead body put into the resting-place of the bodies of the common people.

And I said to the priests and to all the people, This is what the Lord has said: Give no attention to the words of your prophets who say to you, See, in a very little time now the vessels of the Lord's house will come back again from Babylon: for what they say to you is false.

They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they will be till the day when I send their punishment on them, says the Lord. Then I will take them up and put them back in their place.

In the space of two years I will send back into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took away from this place to Babylon:

And I will let Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, come back to this place, with all the prisoners of Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord: for I will have the yoke of the king of Babylon broken.

The prophet Jeremiah said, So be it: may the Lord do so: may the Lord give effect to the words which you have said, and let the vessels of the Lord's house, and all the people who have been taken away, come back from Babylon to this place.

For this is what the Lord has said: When seventy years are ended for Babylon, I will have pity on you and give effect to my good purpose for you, causing you to come back to this place.

I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

For see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will let the fate of my people Israel and Judah be changed, says the Lord: and I will make them come back to the land which I gave to their fathers, so that they may take it for their heritage.

But they will be servants to the Lord their God and to David their king, whom I will give back to them.

So have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, says the Lord; and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and at peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

The wrath of the Lord will not be turned back till he has done, till he has put into effect, the purposes of his heart: in days to come you will have full knowledge of this.

See, I will take them from the north country, and get them from the inmost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the feeble-footed, the woman with child and her who is in birth-pains together: a very great army, they will come back here.

The Lord has said this: Keep your voice from sorrow and your eyes from weeping: for your work will be rewarded, says the Lord; and they will come back from the land of their hater.

And there is hope for the future, says the Lord; and your children will come back to the land which is theirs.

Certainly Ephraim's words of grief have come to my ears, You have given me training and I have undergone it like a young cow unused to the yoke: let me be turned and come back, for you are the Lord my God.

See, I will get them together from all the countries where I have sent them in my wrath and in the heat of my passion and in my bitter feeling; and I will let them come back into this place where they may take their rest safely.

Happy sounds, the voice of joy, the voice of the newly-married man and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who say, Give praise to the Lord of armies, for the Lord is good, for his mercy is unchanging for ever: the voices of those who go with praise into the house of the Lord. For I will let the land come back to its first condition, says the Lord.

But later, they took back again the servants and the servant-girls whom they had let go free, and put them again under the yoke as servants and servant-girls.

But again you have put shame on my name, and you have taken back, every one his man-servant and his servant-girl, whom you had sent away free, and you have put them under the yoke again to be your servants and servant-girls.

See, I will give orders, says the Lord, and make them come back to this town; and they will make war on it and take it and have it burned with fire: and I will make the towns of Judah waste and unpeopled.

And I have sent you all my servants the prophets, getting up early and sending them, saying, Come back, now, every man from his evil way, and do better, and go not after other gods to become their servants, and you will go on living in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers: but your ears have not been open, and you have not given attention to me.

The Lord, the God of Israel, has said: This is what you are to say to the king of Judah who sent you to get directions from me: See, Pharaoh's army, which has come out to your help, will go back to Egypt, to their land.

And the Chaldaeans will come back again and make war against this town and they will take it and put it on fire.

And now be pleased to give ear, O my lord the king; let my prayer for help come before you, and do not make me go back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, for fear that I may come to my death there.

Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and took him into the rulers' doorway in the house of the Lord: and the king said to Jeremiah, I have a question to put to you; keep nothing back from me.

See, all the rest of the women in the house of the king of Judah will be taken out to the king of Babylon's captains, and these women will say, Your nearest friends have been false to you and have got the better of you: they have made your feet go deep into the wet earth, and they are turned away back from you.

But if it comes to the ears of the rulers that I have been talking with you, and they come and say to you, Give us word now of what you have said to the king and what the king said to you, keeping nothing back and we will not put you to death;

Then you are to say to them, I made my request to the king, that he would not send me back to my death in Jonathan's house.

Then go back to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made ruler over the towns of Judah, and make your living-place with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go. So the captain of the armed men gave him food and some money and let him go.

Then all the Jews came back from all the places to which they had gone in flight, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and got in a great store of wine and summer fruit.

And all the people whom Ishmael had taken away prisoners from Mizpah, turning round, came back and went to Johanan, the son of Kareah.

Then Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were with him, took all the rest of the people whom Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, had made prisoners, after he had put to death Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the people from Mizpah, that is, the men of war and the women and the children and the unsexed servants, whom he had taken back with him from Gibeon:

Then Jeremiah the prophet said to them, I have given ear to you; see, I will make prayer to the Lord your God, as you have said; and it will be that, whatever the Lord may say in answer to you, I will give you word of it, keeping nothing back.

And I will have mercy on you, so that he may have mercy on you and let you go back to your land.

But Johanan, the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces took all the rest of Judah who had come back into the land of Judah from all the nations where they had been forced to go;

So that not one of the rest of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt and are living there, will get away or keep his life, to come back to the land of Judah where they are hoping to come back and be living again: for not one will come back, but only those who are able to get away.

And those who get away safe from the sword will come back from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, a very small number; and all the rest of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt and are living there, will see whose word has effect, mine or theirs.

What have I seen? they are overcome with fear and turned back; their men of war are broken and have gone in flight, not looking back: fear is on every side, says the Lord.

... are stopped in their going, they are falling; and they say one to another, Let us get up and go back to our people, to the land of our birth, away from the cruel sword.

And those who were her fighters for payment are like fat oxen; for they are turned back, they have gone in flight together, they do not keep their place: for the day of their fate has come on them, the time of their punishment.

But have no fear, O Jacob, my servant, and do not be troubled, O Israel: for see, I will make you come back from far away, and your seed from the land where they are prisoners; and Jacob will come back, and will be quiet and in peace, and no one will give him cause for fear.

O sword of the Lord, how long will you have no rest? put yourself back into your cover; be at peace, be quiet.

Let him be cursed who does the Lord's work half-heartedly; let him be cursed who keeps back his sword from blood.

How is it broken down! how is Moab's back turned in shame! so Moab will be a cause of sport and of fear to everyone round about him.

Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you who are living in Dedan; for I will send the fate of Edom on him, even the time of his punishment.

Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let the flag be lifted up; give the word and keep nothing back; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her images are put to shame, her gods are broken.

For see, I am moving and sending up against Babylon a band of great nations from the north country: and they will put their armies in position against her; and from there she will be taken: their arrows will be like those of an expert man of war; not one will come back without getting its mark.

Put your armies in position against Babylon on every side, all you bowmen; let loose your arrows at her, not keeping any back: for she has done evil against the Lord.

And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place, and he will get his food on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire in full measure on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight, waiting in their strong places; their strength has given way, they have become like women: her houses have been put on fire, her locks are broken.