שׁוּב shuv
What It Means
Shuv is one of the busiest verbs in the Hebrew Bible, turning up more than a thousand times, and its plain sense is nothing more spiritual than turning around and going back: a man returning to his tent, a traveler to his own country.1 The prophets seized on it for the most important journey there is. To shuv to the LORD is to reverse direction, to stop walking away from him and start walking toward him. Joel’s call is not a change of opinion but a change of feet, and it has to reach the heart: “rend your hearts and not your garments.” Torn clothing was grief’s visible sign; Joel wants the tear to go deeper than cloth. And notice who else turns. The same verb is used of God — “Who knows whether he will not turn and relent” (Joel 2:14) — so repentance is less a solitary trek than two parties facing each other again.
A Story
In Jonah 3, the prophet walks a day into Nineveh, and preaches one sentence of judgment. The whole city, greatest to least, believes God, fasts, and puts on sackcloth. The king comes down off his throne, strips off his robe, sits in ashes, and decrees that everyone “turn (shuv) from his evil way” (Jonah 3:8), adding, with no promise to lean on, “Who knows? God may turn and relent” (Jonah 3:9). God does (Jonah 3:10). Then comes the sequel: Jonah, furious, prays that he knew all along this would happen, “for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Jonah 4:2), the very confession Joel told Israel to trust.
For Your Journey
We tend to picture repentance as a mood: how bad we feel, how thoroughly we have punished ourselves, and so we measure it by the tears. Joel asks for something plainer and harder. He asks that we turn around. Rending a garment, then and now, is the easy part; the display can be staged, and our regret often loops back to admire itself. Shuv asks where our feet are pointed.
It also comes with an argument for why we can afford to turn: “for he is gracious and merciful.” We are not turning back toward a frown and folded arms. We are turning toward the one who is slow to anger, and the reason we can keep turning, again and again, is that the road home has never been closed to us.
In Christ
We cannot make the turn on our own strength, and the prophets knew it. In Jeremiah 31:18-19 Ephraim prays for God to do the turning, and Lamentations ends on the same plea: “Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may be restored!” (Lamentations 5:21) — shuv again, with God as the one who brings us back. Hosea hears the answer: “I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely” (Hosea 14:4), the steadfast love that does not let go. And it comes in a person. Before Peter’s denial Jesus says, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Not if, but when — his return was prayed for before his failure. The New Testament calls this same turn metanoia. The road home is open because “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10), and Joel’s promise beyond the return — “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28) — Peter declares fulfilled (Acts 2:16-17).2
We thought the word meant our journey back. It does. But the Father saw us while we were still a long way off, and ran (Luke 15:20). He had been facing the road all along.
“We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.”
“If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”