What Does 2 Samuel 22:9 Mean?
A smoke rises from his nostrils, and fire from his mouth devours; coals blaze 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
There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.THE KEY
The smoke is not separate from the anger: Hebrew’s word for nostrils also names the heat of anger.
THE MEANING
Here, divine anger takes visible form: smoke rises from the nostrils, fire comes from the mouth, and the fire consumes while coals catch alight. The image meets the reader now as force that reaches outward and kindles what it touches.
THE ROOT
בְּאַפּוֹ
be’appo
GROWS FROM
אנף
To flare in anger; the related noun אַף (af) means nostril or nose, and also anger or heat.
The word אַף (af, nostril) also names anger, the heat associated with the nose. Smoke at the nostrils is not a body detail beside the anger; it gives the anger a visible form.
ALSO GROWS
af: Nostril or nose; also anger or heat.
אַף
The verse’s smoke rises from the very word that can name anger.
appayim: Nostrils; in אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם (erekh appayim), “slow to flare.”
אַפַּיִם
The same nostril image gives anger a bodily shape, as heat that can flare.
בָּעֲרוּ
ba’aru
GROWS FROM
בער
To burn, blaze, or consume; in an intensive form, to remove or clear away.
The coals are described with the same verb family as a blaze: בער (ba’ar) means to burn, and in an intensive form can mean to clear away. “Kindled” carries both ignition and the consuming force that follows.
ALSO GROWS
bo’er: Burning or blazing.
בֹּעֵר
The same root describes the bush burning in Exodus 3:2.
bi’er: Removed or cleared away.
בִּעֵר
The root can also name what burning does: it clears something away.
תֹּאכֵל
to’khel
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat or consume.
“devours” in this verse is to’khel. Hebrew uses the ordinary eating verb אכל (akhal), making the fire the eater. The coals burn while the fire consumes, joining combustion and eating in one image.
ALSO GROWS
akhal: To eat or consume.
אָכַל
The fire acts as an eater, consuming what it reaches.
ma’akhal: Food, or that which is eaten.
מַאֲכָל
This branch makes the eating image concrete: the fire consumes as a mouth takes food.
THE PATTERN
Divine anger and presence become visible as heat that burns and consumes.
Behold, the nature of the LORD comes from far away, burning with his anger, and its burden is heavy. His lips are filled with seething, and his tongue is like a fire that eats.For our God is a fire that devours.THE THREAD
And the messenger of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not eaten up.Exodus uses the same roots בער (ba’ar, burn) and אכל (akhal, eat or consume): the bush burns, yet is not consumed. Here, coals burn and the fire eats; the paired roots reveal that flame and consumption are distinct parts of the image.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us