Hebrew word · H322

אֲחֹרַנִּית

'achoranit

backwards

'Backward, in reverse', always about direction: walking backward (Gen 9:23), falling backward (1 Sam 4:18), a shadow going back (2 Kgs 20:10; Isa 38:8), Jerusalem turning back in shame (Lam 1:8).

Appears 7 times in 6 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

backwards, back part, the rear

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of 1 Kings 18:37

Range of meaning

'Backward, in reverse', always about direction: walking backward (Gen 9:23), falling backward (1 Sam 4:18), a shadow going back (2 Kgs 20:10; Isa 38:8), Jerusalem turning back in shame (Lam 1:8).

Against the English

KJV, WEB, BSB and NASB add 'again' ('back again'), which clearly makes it a return. YLT and the Jewish Publication Society version keep the bare 'backward', which is ambiguous.

How it drifted

'Again' is not in the Hebrew. It probably comes through the Latin Vulgate's 'iterum' and the older English tradition. It is a fair reading of the context, but it settles a real ambiguity.

Used elsewhere in the period

The word never means 'repent' anywhere else. The related word ʾāḥôr ('behind, back') with 'turn' often describes turning away from God (Isa 1:4; Jer 7:24, 'they went backward and not forward'; Ps 44:18). The rabbis noticed this. Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 31b says Elijah 'spoke insolently toward heaven' here, as if to say: you are the one who turned their heart away.

Where it appears

Genesis · 2

  1. Genesis 9:23 אֲחֹ֣רַנִּ֔ית אֲחֹ֣רַנִּ֔ית backwards, [were] backwards

    Then Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it across their shoulders, and walking backward, they covered their father’s nakedness. Their faces were turned away so that they did not see their father’s nakedness.

1 Samuel · 1

  1. 1 Samuel 4:18 אֲחֹ֨רַנִּ֜ית backwards

    As soon as the ark of God was mentioned, Eli fell backward from his chair by the city gate, and being old and heavy, he broke his neck and died. And Eli had judged Israel forty years.

    Here: He fell backwards, which explains the broken neck. A blind man of ninety-eight (4:15) would have no warning and no way of breaking the fall.

1 Kings · 1

  1. 1 Kings 18:37 אֲחֹרַנִּֽית׃ backwards

    Answer me, O LORD! Answer me, so that this people will know that You, the LORD, are God, and that You have turned their hearts back again.”

    Here: An adverb meaning 'backward, in reverse'. Elsewhere it is used for walking backward (Gen 9:23), falling backward (1 Sam 4:18) and a shadow going back (2 Kgs 20:10). Here it most likely means 'turned back around' to God, though some ancient readers took it as 'turned away'.

2 Kings · 2

  1. 2 Kings 20:10 אֲחֹרַנִּ֖ית backwards

    “It is easy for the shadow to lengthen ten steps,” answered Hezekiah, “but not for it to go back ten steps.”

  2. 2 Kings 20:11 אֲחֹֽרַנִּ֖ית backwards

    So Isaiah the prophet called out to the LORD, and He brought the shadow back the ten steps it had descended on the stairway of Ahaz.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 38:8 אֲחֹרַנִּ֖ית backwards

    I will make the sun’s shadow that falls on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.’” So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had descended.

    Here: 'Backward,' against the natural direction. The same word is used of people walking backward (Gen 9:23) and of Eli falling backward (1 Sam 4:18).

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.