What Does 2 Samuel 14:14 Mean?
For we will surely die, and are as waters poured out upon the earth, which cannot be gathered up. And God does not lift up a living soul, and he devises plans, so that the outcast is not driven away from 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
For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.THE KEY
What death makes seem irretrievable, God meets with a plan so the one already driven away is not driven away for good.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you where loss feels irreversible: some things cannot be gathered back into their former shape. Yet God’s thought is active toward the one who is already driven away, so exile does not have to define the final relation. Grief and purposeful return stand in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being driven away means you are permanently beyond God’s reach.
THE ROOT
נִדָּח
niddāḥ
GROWS FROM
נדח
To drive away, thrust away, or cast out.
The KJV’s “banished” and “expelled” carry the same Hebrew root: the text says, in effect, that the driven-away one is not to be driven away from God. The repetition makes restoration address the exact condition of exile instead of erasing it.
ALSO GROWS
niddāḥ: A person driven away; an outcast.
נִדָּח
This is the word behind “banished,” naming the person in the condition of exile.
hiddiaḥ: To drive away or lead astray.
הִדִּיחַ
This verbal form makes clear that exile is an act of being pushed away, the very movement the verse says will not define the person’s end.
וְחָשַׁב מַחֲשָׁבוֹת
ve-chashav machashavot
GROWS FROM
חשב
To think, reckon, or plan.
“devises plans” in this verse is ve-chashav machashavot. The Hebrew repeats the root in the verb “he planned” and the noun “plans”, chashav machashavot, emphatically, “he plans plans.” “Devises means” keeps the result but conceals the echo of purposeful thought.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: A thought or plan.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The plural form in this verse is the “means” God devises; the English hides that it comes from the same root as “devises.”
cheshbon: An account, calculation, or reckoning.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch shows the root’s sense of considered thought, not a passing wish.
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
Living soul, life, or person.
The Hebrew word rendered “person” is nephesh, which can mean a living soul or life. It keeps a concrete living being in view rather than leaving “person” as an abstract status.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living soul, life, or person.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word in the verse’s phrase rendered “any person,” holding the living human being in view.
nafsho: His life or his living self.
נַפְשׁוֹ
This form shows how the same word can name an individual life, bringing the verse’s concern down to the person rather than a category.
THE PATTERN
God’s purpose reaches toward the one already driven away, keeping separation from becoming the final word.
If any of yours are driven away to the outermost edge of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.I will seek the one who lost the way, and bring back the driven away, and bind up the broken, and hold up the sick. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.What man among you, holding a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one that has lost its way until he finds it?THE THREAD
If any of yours are driven away to the outermost edge of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.“Driven out” uses the same root, נדח, as this verse’s “banished” and “expelled.” Deuteronomy then says the one driven out is gathered from the farthest distance, making visible what “not expelled from him” means: distance does not prevent return.
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