shanah

This is the plain sense of doing something once more. An act is carried out, and then it is carried out again: a blow is struck a second time, a command is obeyed twice over, a warning is not given again. The verb points squarely at the second occurrence, so it often lines up with the words "a second time" or "again."

The idea reaches beyond deeds to words. To repeat a matter is to bring it up again, to keep saying it, and Proverbs warns that harping on an offense can drive friends apart. When a dream comes to Pharaoh in two forms, this same verb says it was doubled, given a second time to show the matter was fixed and would surely happen.

The word is closely tied to the Hebrew idea of "two": to repeat is simply to make a second of something. That numerical root is what separates it from other words for continuing or adding on, which stress going further rather than doing a distinct second time.

Here the word turns from repeating to altering. It covers changing a thing you control, such as your behavior, your clothing, a spoken promise, or a fair verdict, and it covers becoming different or simply being unlike everything around you. David changes his behavior to feign madness, a king's wife changes her appearance to go unrecognized, a prisoner changes out of his prison clothes when he is freed.

The same verb describes things that are diverse, that differ one from another, as when a royal banquet sets out drinking vessels no two of which are alike, or a people whose laws are unlike every other nation's. In this use the word does not say something was altered; it says it stands apart, marked out as different.

One famous line turns the verb on God: "I the LORD do not change." Where people and their plans shift and become other than they were, God says he does not. This makes the word carry real theological weight, contrasting human inconstancy with divine faithfulness.

The word is bound up with the Hebrew idea of "two": to change is, in a sense, to make a thing into a second, other thing. That is why one verb can mean both "do again" and "make different," and readers should let the context decide which is in view.