אֽוֹלִיכֵם֙ (’ō·w·lî·ḵêm) in Jeremiah 31:9: Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - first person common singular | third person masculine plural
אֽוֹלִיכֵם֙ (’ō·w·lî·ḵêm) in Jeremiah 31:9
Source Word
Jeremiah 31:9 token 5 is אֽוֹלִיכֵם֙, H1980, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-1cs | 3mp and aligned with I will make them walk.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form locates the returning community's progress in the Lord's enabling care, and the adjoining path details show that this care is fitted to their journey.
How To Communicate It
Teach the subject, suffix, and route as one promise: the Lord brings this scattered assembly along water and level ground toward restoration.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The Hifil identifies caused movement here; the restoration oracle supplies its covenant meaning.
- Do not universalize the level path into freedom from every physical or spiritual struggle.
- Keep the Father, firstborn, shepherd, ransom, and redemption claims anchored in Jeremiah 31.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Verb - Hifil - Imperfect - first person common singular | third person masculine plural
Hifil
Imperfect
First
Common
Singular
Third person masculine plural
The first-person Hifil form presents the Lord as the one who causes the returning people to walk, and the plural suffix identifies them as the participants. The promised route beside streams and on level ground defines the action more precisely than the stem by itself.
The verb moves the gathered remnant along a supplied and unobstructed path after the preceding promise that the Lord will lead them.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The verb follows I will lead them and opens the route description beside streams, on a level path, where the returnees will not stumble.
The Lord's promise to gather the remnant from distant places and bring them home as a great assembly.
It portrays the divine speaker enabling the restored people to travel along the prepared path.
It does not promise that every believer will avoid all difficulty, make the people passive in every respect, or derive the whole doctrine of restoration from the Hifil stem.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The form names the Lord's active enabling of the remnant's homeward journey along the safe route described in the same clause.
First-person Hifil imperfect with plural participant suffix. causes the returning assembly to proceed beside water on level ground. Attached to the Lord as speaker and the gathered remnant as those made to walk. Governed by the return promise spanning Jeremiah 31:7-11. The local route language determines the pastoral force of the causative construction.
What does the form add to the remnant's promised return? It presents their walking as enabled by the Lord, whose route provides water, level ground, and protection from stumbling.
Direct: The Hifil and plural suffix directly support I will make them walk, with the next phrases supplying the route.
The imperfect fits promised action in this oracle, but aspect alone does not establish every detail of fulfillment. H1980 can describe ethical conduct elsewhere; the streams and path make this occurrence a guided journey. The suffix identifies the restored group without erasing the varied vulnerable people named in verse 8.
Hifil proves exhaustive causation: Explain the caused movement in this clause without turning one stem into a complete account of providence. level path means a painless life: The path belongs to Jeremiah's promised return and should not become a guarantee against all later hardship. walking always means moral conduct: The return route, streams, and non-stumbling language locate this form in physical guided travel.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
Jeremiah 31:9 token 5 is אֽוֹלִיכֵם֙, H1980, parsed V-Hifil-Imperf-1cs | 3mp and aligned with I will make them walk.
הָלַךְ commonly concerns going or walking and can describe conduct elsewhere. Here its Hifil occurrence names caused movement on a concrete return route.
The first-person speaker acts upon the plural returnees; the following water, path, and non-stumbling phrases specify where and how their movement proceeds.
The Lord promises to gather a vulnerable remnant, guide them home, supply a traversable path, and keep them as a shepherd keeps a flock.
The form serves Jeremiah's restoration promise in which the one who scattered Israel also gathers, guards, ransoms, and redeems; those claims come from the oracle around the verb.
Read I will lead them and I will make them walk together, then trace how streams, level ground, fatherly care, and shepherding fill out the promise.
Do not make one causative form settle debates about providence or turn the non-stumbling route into a guarantee of a trouble-free life.