47 yet if they shall repent in the land where they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication to you in the land of those who carried them captive, saying, 'We have sinned, and have done perversely; we have dealt wickedly;'
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Bethink themselves - literally, as in the margin - i. e. "reflect," "consider seriously." Compare Deuteronomy 30:1.
Sinned, done perversely, committed wickedness - The words here used seem to have become the standard form of expressing contrition when the time of the captivity arrived and the Israelites were forcibly removed to Babylon (compare the margin reference). The three expressions are thought to form a climax, rising from negative to positive guilt, and from mere wrongful acts to depravation of the moral character.
[Yet] if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee (r) in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness;
(r) Though the temple was the chief place of prayer, yet he does not exclude them who being forced by necessity to call upon him in other places.
Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives,.... Or, "return to their heart" (a); remember their sins, the cause of their captivity, and reflect upon them:
and repent of them, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives; though and while they are in such a state:
saying, we have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; which phrases include all their sins, with all the aggravated circumstances of them, and their sense of them, and contrition for them.
(a) "et reversi fuerint ad cor suum", Pagninas, Montanus, Vatablus.
*More commentary available at chapter level.