What Does Jeremiah 15:9 Mean?
She who bore seven grows faint; she has breathed out her living soul. Her sun has gone down while it is still day. She has been shamed and confounded, and the remnant of them I will give to the sword before their enemies, says the LORD.
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
She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.THE KEY
Her death is pictured as a double departure: she blows out her living soul as her sun enters its decline while daylight remains.
THE MEANING
A woman who has borne seven withers, and her living soul is blown out before her day is done. Shame remains, and the people left behind are given to the sword before their enemies. Grief reaches beyond her death into the fate of the survivors.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a full household guarantees safety dissolves here: even the mother who has borne seven withers, and those left behind face the sword.
THE ROOT
נָפְחָה נַפְשָׁהּ
naphchah nafshah
GROWS FROM
נפח
n-p-ḥ
to blow, puff, or fan
“breathed out her living soul” in this verse is naphchah nafshah. The Hebrew says she blew out her נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living soul), setting a word for blowing beside the word for the living person. The same root describes the life-giving act at creation, so here that motion turns outward.
ALSO GROWS
mappuach: bellows
מַפּוּחַ
A bellows fans air outward, making concrete the forceful motion held in the root.
vayyippach: and he blew
וַיִּפַּח
This is the same verb used when the LORD gives life to the human in Genesis 2:7; here the motion is reversed.
אֶתֵּן
etten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
to give, set, or place
The Hebrew verb is first-person: “I will give” or “I will place.” The survivors are actively given to the sword, making the line’s violence stark and direct.
ALSO GROWS
nathan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This verb names the act by which the survivors are placed in the sword’s reach.
mattanah: gift or present
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the root’s language of giving; here the same root places the remnant in danger.
בָּאָה שִׁמְשָׁהּ
ba'ah shimshah
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
to come or enter
“is gone down” in this verse is ba'ah shimshah. The verb for the sun’s setting is literally a form of “come” or “enter.” Her sun enters its decline while the day is still present, making the ending arrive early.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come or enter
בּוֹא
This root gives the verse’s setting sun its image of entering the horizon before day is over.
mavo: entrance or entry
מָבוֹא
This noun carries the same root’s sense of coming in, echoing the sun’s early arrival at its setting.
THE PATTERN
Life can be cut short before daylight’s natural close, and visible fullness cannot secure it.
Man, born of a woman, is short of days and full of trembling.He bends my strength low on the way; he cuts my days short.But God said to him, Mindless one, this night your living soul will be demanded back from you. Then whose will those things be that you have made ready?THE THREAD
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.Genesis uses the same root נפח (naphach, blow or puff) for the act that gives life to the human. Jeremiah turns that motion outward: the woman blows out her נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living soul), making her death an undoing of that first imparting of life.
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