What Does 2 Chronicles 20:14 Mean?
Then upon Jahaziel, son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the breath of the LORD in the midst of the assembly.
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
Then upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of the LORD in the midst of the congregation;THE KEY
What English calls “Spirit” is Hebrew רוּחַ (ruach), breath, wind, and spirit in one word, so the LORD’s presence arrives as living movement in the congregation’s midst.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s breath comes upon one person among a gathered people. You meet the verse in that same human space: presence comes close enough to rest upon a body while others stand around it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that divine presence belongs only somewhere apart from shared human life; here, the breath comes in the congregation’s midst.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
Breath, wind, moving air; animating spirit.
English “Spirit” can sound abstract, while רוּחַ carries breath, wind, and animating presence in one Hebrew word. The consonantal kinship with רָוַח and רְוָחָה (“find room,” “relief”) lets that breath echo release into spaciousness, a sound-link English does not preserve.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Breath, wind, or spirit.
רוּחַ
The verse’s word holds these senses together, so the LORD’s presence can be heard as breath moving upon a person.
ravach: To find room or be relieved.
רָוַח
Its consonants echo רוּחַ and connect the breath’s movement with a sense of room opening.
revachah: Relief, respite, or room.
רְוָחָה
This related consonantal form names relief, letting the breath’s arrival resonate with spaciousness.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s breath enters human space as animating presence, bringing life or speech forth.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, a very great army.And when he had said this, he breathed into them, and said to them, Take in the Set-Apart Breath.And they were all filled with the Set-Apart Breath, and began to speak in other tongues, as the breath gave them to speak out.THE THREAD
The breath of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty keeps me alive.Job names רוּחַ (ruach) as God’s creative presence and pairs it with נִשְׁמַת (nishmat, breath) as what gives life. Together, the words let you hear the “Spirit of the LORD” as breath moving within a person.
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