What Does Genesis 21:15 Mean?
And the waters ran out of the skin, and she threw the child under one of the shrubs.
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 the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.THE KEY
The verse binds the end of provision to a forceful act: as the water reaches its end, the child is cast beneath the shrub.
THE MEANING
The water is gone; she casts the child under a shrub. The verse leaves the scarcity and the severity of that act together in view, without explaining either away.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכְלוּ
vayikhlu
GROWS FROM
כלה
k-l-h
finish, come to an end, be consumed
“ran out” in this verse is vayikhlu. The verb translated “spent” comes from a root meaning to finish or reach an end. Its branches carry that sense of completion, marking the water’s exhaustion as a hard threshold in the scene.
ALSO GROWS
kalah: come to an end, be finished
כָּלָה
This basic form makes the water’s depletion a reaching of the end, not just a change in amount.
takhlit: end, completion, limit
תַּכְלִית
This branch makes the root’s sense of an ending concrete: the water has reached its limit.
וַתַּשְׁלֵךְ
vattashlekh
GROWS FROM
שלך
sh-l-k
throw, cast
“threw” in this verse is vattashlekh. The English “cast” already carries force, and the Hebrew root keeps that force in the action. The child is not merely described as being near the shrub; the verb names an act of casting him there.
ALSO GROWS
shalakh: throw, cast
שָׁלַךְ
This basic form shares the verse’s sense of a forceful act of putting something down or away.
hishlikh: cast, throw away
הִשְׁלִיךְ
This related form makes the root’s throwing action vivid alongside the child being cast beneath the shrub.
הַיֶּלֶד
hayyeled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
bear, beget, bring forth
The word for “child” shares its root with the verb for bearing or begetting. The root keeps the child’s bond to the one who bears him present inside a verse whose action places them apart.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: bear, give birth, beget
יָלַד
This verb reveals the life-bearing sense behind the word for the child in the verse.
yaldut: childhood, youth
יַלְדוּת
This branch keeps the root connected to the vulnerable stage of life named by “child.”
THE PATTERN
When a child’s life reaches the edge of survival, scripture names the extremity without disguising it.
And she went and sat down across from him, a bowshot away, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat across from him and lifted up her voice and wept.And she said, As the LORD your God lives, I have no loaf, but only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a flask, and look, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and make it for me and for my son, that we may eat it, and die.And he pleaded with him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter lies at the very edge; come and lay your hands on her, that she may be delivered and will live."THE THREAD
And she went and sat down across from him, a bowshot away, for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat across from him and lifted up her voice and wept.“The child” is הַיֶּלֶד (hayyeled, the child), from ילד (y-l-d, to bear or beget), the same word and root carried into the next verse. That shared root keeps the bond between Hagar and her child present as the next verse brings her fear and grief into view.
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