What Does 1 Samuel 16:14 Mean?
But the breath of the LORD turned aside from Saul, and a harmful breath from the LORD shook him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.THE KEY
The verse’s shock is that the same word, ruach, names what departs from Saul and what then terrifies him.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a severe change in presence before the reader: the LORD’s ruach has departed from Saul, while an evil ruach from the LORD now troubles him. It does not describe the aftermath as empty or harmless; the distress is active, and its source is stated plainly. The verse leaves that disturbing tension unresolved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the LORD’s agency in a person can only arrive as comfort: here, an evil spirit from the LORD brings distress.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
ruach
Breath, wind, moving air; also spirit.
“harmful breath” in this verse is ruach. Hebrew repeats רוּחַ (ruach) in both clauses, though English capitalizes “Spirit” in one and lowercases “spirit” in the other. The word also means breath and wind, so the verse gives both departure and affliction the same name: ruach.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Breath, wind, or spirit; the singular form used twice in this verse.
רוּחַ
Its repetition joins what departs from Saul to the spirit that troubles him under one Hebrew word.
ruachot: Winds or spirits, the plural form.
רוּחוֹת
The plural preserves the word’s range across moving winds and spiritual presences.
בָּעַת
ba'at
GROWS FROM
בעת
ba'at
Terrify, dismay.
“shook” in this verse is ba'at. “Troubled” can sound like mild agitation, but this Hebrew root belongs to the language of terror and dismay. It sharpens the verse: Saul is not merely unsettled; the evil ruach terrifies him.
ALSO GROWS
ba'at: To terrify or dismay.
בָּעַת
This root gives the verse’s “troubled” a forceful sense of terror.
bi'utei: Terrors; in construct, “terrors of.”
בִּעוּתֵי
This related noun shows the same root naming terrors, not just general unease.
שָׁאוּל
Sha'ul
GROWS FROM
שאל
sha'al
Ask, request.
Saul’s name carries the sense “asked for,” from the root of asking and requesting. Beside the departing ruach, the name sharpens a limit: being the one asked for does not make divine presence something possessed.
ALSO GROWS
sha'al: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
This is the verb behind the sense carried in Saul’s name.
she'elah: A request or question.
שְׁאֵלָה
This related noun keeps the name’s connection to asking visible.
THE PATTERN
Ruach is an active presence that can be withdrawn, sent, or move beyond human control.
You hide your face, and they are shaken; you gather in their breath, and they breathe out and return to their dust.And the LORD said to him, By what? And he said, I will go forth and be a lying breath in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, You will coax him and also prevail; go forth and do so.The breath blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so is everyone who is born of breath.THE THREAD
You hide your face, and they are shaken; you gather in their breath, and they breathe out and return to their dust. You send out your breath, and they are created; you renew the face of the ground.Psalm 104 uses the same Hebrew word, ruach, first for breath taken away and then for the spirit sent forth. That doubled use sharpens the repeated word in Samuel: the LORD’s ruach departs, while another ruach is named as the source of Saul’s terror.
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