What Does 2 Kings 13:21 Mean?
And it came to be, as they were burying a man, behold, they saw a raiding band of men, and they cast the man into the cave of Elisha. And when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and stood up on his feet.
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
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.THE KEY
Even what death leaves behind can carry life across the grave’s boundary.
THE MEANING
A dead man is lowered into a grave, touches Elisha’s bones, and lives. Death seems to have closed the story, yet what remains of Elisha becomes the point where life returns. The verse holds that reversal in the body itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Death does not have absolute custody over what can happen next.
THE ROOT
וַיְחִי
wayeḥî
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live, be alive, or revive.
“came to life” in this verse is wayeḥî. The verb rendered “revived” comes from the ordinary Hebrew verb for living. The same root names both the living and life itself, so the verse describes life returning without separating that return from the act of living.
ALSO GROWS
chay: Living; alive.
חַי
The dead man’s return belongs to the same root-language as being alive.
chayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
This related form names life itself, placing the man’s rising within the root’s wider language of living.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, the boundary of death does not prevent life from returning.
And the LORD heard and responded to the voice of Elijah, and the living soul of the child returned into him, and he lived.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.But if the breath of him who raised Jesus from the dead makes its home in you, then he who raised the Anointed One from the dead will also make your death-bound bodies alive through his breath that makes its home in you.THE THREAD
And the LORD heard and responded to the voice of Elijah, and the living soul of the child returned into him, and he lived.Both accounts use וַיְחִי (wayeḥî, “and he lived”), from חיה (chayah, “to live, revive”). In one, a child lives again; in the other, a dead man lives at Elisha’s bones. The KJV’s different phrasing hides their shared Hebrew verb.
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