Hebrew word · H7728

שׁוֹבֵב

hashoevah

backsliding

"Turned-away, apostate, wayward." It comes from shuv, "turn, return," and is the same root as the call "Return!"

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. · Updated October 31, 2026

What it means

backturning, apostate, backsliding

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

Range of meaning: "Turned-away, apostate, wayward." It comes from shuv, "turn, return," and is the same root as the call "Return!"
Against the English: KJV/WEB/YLT "backsliding"; BSB "faithless." Both capture the disloyalty but lose the wordplay with "return."
How it drifted: "Backsliding" became revival-era vocabulary for an individual believer whose personal devotion has lapsed. Here the word describes a whole people who turned away from their covenant God, and it is built from the same verb used to call them back.
Used elsewhere in the period: Jer 3:14, 22 ("Return, O backsliding children," shuvu banim shovavim); Jer 49:4 uses the same phrase habbat hashovevah for Ammon; Isa 57:17.

Range of meaning: Turned-away, turning back, rebellious, apostate. From šûb, 'to turn'. Used for faithless Israel ('backturning sons', Jer 3:14, 22), for a wayward 'daughter' (Jer 31:22; of Ammon in Jer 49:4), and for someone who 'went on turning away' (Isa 57:17).
Against the English: BSB/WEB/NIV have 'traitors', ESV/NASB 'apostate', YLT 'backslider'. KJV takes it as an adverb, 'turning away he hath divided', meaning God turned away from them as he divided. Many critical scholars emend it to 'our captors' (lešovenu).
How it drifted: 'Backslider' (YLT) carries a modern church meaning, a believer who has lapsed in personal devotion. The Hebrew word describes a rebel or turncoat, and here it probably means whoever is handed the land.
Used elsewhere in the period: Jer 3:14, 22; 31:22; 49:4; Isa 57:17. The root is very common in Jeremiah's language of 'turning' away from and back to YHWH.

Jeremiah · 2

Jeremiah 31:22 הַשּֽׁוֹבֵבָ֑ה <the> apostate

How long will you wander, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the land—a woman will shelter a man.”

Here: Built from shuv ("turn, return"). She is the one who turned away. The word plays on the "Return!" (shuvi) of verse 21: the one who turned away is called to turn back.
Jeremiah 49:4 הַשּֽׁוֹבֵבָ֑ה <the> apostate

Why do you boast of your valleys—your valleys so fruitful, O faithless daughter? You trust in your riches and say, ‘Who can come against me?’

Micah · 1

Micah 2:4 לְשׁוֹבֵ֥ב to an apostate

In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”

Here: 'To a rebel' or 'turncoat'. From the root 'turn' (šûb). Probably the mourners' bitter name for whoever receives their land, most likely the foreign conqueror. Some emend it to 'our captors'.

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