What Does Genesis 6:17 Mean?
And look, I, even I, am bringing a flood of waters upon the earth, to ruin all flesh, in which is the breath of life, from under the heavens. All that is in the earth shall breathe its last.
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, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.THE KEY
The breath of life marks the creatures the flood destroys; here, breath is no shield from death.
THE MEANING
You are flesh living by breath, and your body does not hold life as its own guarantee. This verse holds the violence plainly: the flood reaches every breathing creature beneath heaven, and all die.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being alive makes a creature safe from destruction.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Breath; moving air, including wind.
“the breath of life” in this verse is ruach. The same Hebrew word can name breath, wind, and what English translations call spirit. Here it is joined to life, tying the breath within flesh to the creature’s vulnerability: the breath marks life, but does not shield it from the flood.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Moving air; wind.
רוּחַ
This is the same word as the breath in the verse, keeping wind and the breath of living creatures within one Hebrew term.
ruach: The breath that sustains life, sometimes rendered “spirit” in English.
רוּחַ
This sense makes the verse’s scope concrete: the flood reaches all flesh that carries the breath of life.
לְשַׁחֵת
leshachet
GROWS FROM
שחת
sh-ḥ-t
To ruin, spoil, or destroy.
“to ruin all flesh” in this verse is leshachet. The Hebrew root translated “destroy” here is also translated “corrupt” for the earth in Genesis 6:11. One root links the ruin already named in the earth with the destruction announced in this verse.
ALSO GROWS
shachat: To be ruined or become corrupt.
שָׁחַת
This root describes the earth as corrupt in Genesis 6:11, linking that condition with the destruction named here.
mashchit: One who ruins; a destroyer.
מַשְׁחִית
This related form shows the same root’s movement from ruin as a condition to ruin as an act.
חַיִּים
chayyim
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live; to be alive.
“the breath of life” in this verse is chayyim. The word for life belongs to the same root family as words for the living and for a living creature. Paired with breath, it names life as something present in bodies, which is why the verse’s reach is “all flesh.”
ALSO GROWS
chay: Living; alive.
חַי
The shared root places the breath of life in the condition of being alive.
chayyah: A living creature; animal.
חַיָּה
This branch makes the scope of life concrete: the root can name the creatures whose breath the verse says the flood reaches.
THE PATTERN
Breath is the shared condition of creaturely life, and living bodies remain vulnerable to its ending.
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.If he sets his heart upon man, if he gathers to himself his breath and his breathing. All flesh expires together, and mortal man turns back to dust.Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all life and breath and all things.THE THREAD
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry ground, died.Genesis 7:22 repeats “breath of life” and shows what Genesis 6:17 announces: every creature on dry land carrying that breath dies. The echo makes the flood’s reach physical and total.
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