What Does 1 Kings 17:22 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The child’s “soul” is nefesh, the living soul, and its return is what the verse immediately names as his return to life.
THE MEANING
Here, the LORD hears Elijah’s voice, and the child’s nefesh, the living soul, returns to him; then the verse says he lives. The returning nefesh and the child’s revival are the same restoration seen from two angles. Death is named plainly, and life returns.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a cry at the edge of death goes unheard: the LORD hears, and the child’s life returns.
THE ROOT
וַתָּשָׁב
wattāshov
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv, return, turn back.
“came into him again” in this verse is wattāshov. The verb is from shuv, the root for return or turning back. The sentence’s hinge is a return: the child’s nefesh comes back to him, and the next clause names the result, he lives.
ALSO GROWS
yeshovev: restores, brings back
יְשׁוֹבֵב
In Psalm 23:3, the same root describes restoration of the nefesh, joining return with the renewal of the living soul.
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun preserves the root’s movement of returning, the same movement carried by the child’s life coming back to him.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
nefesh, the living soul; the word also names a person or the self’s appetite.
The child’s nefesh is the living soul that returns to him. The same Hebrew word can describe a living being or a person’s appetite, keeping the verse’s “soul” close to the lived, desiring self.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh chayyah: living soul, living being
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
Genesis 2:7 uses the same phrase for the human as a living soul, linking the child’s returning nefesh with the whole living person.
nafsh’kha: your self, your appetite
נַפְשְׁךָ
In Deuteronomy 12:20, nefesh appears in a phrase about desire; the same word that returns here can also name the self that longs.
וַיְחִי
wayechi
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah, live, remain alive.
“revived” in this verse is wayechi. The verse ends with wayechi, “and he lived,” from chayah. This makes the restoration concrete: the nefesh returns, and the child lives.
ALSO GROWS
chai: living, alive
חַי
This adjective shares the root and describes the state named at the verse’s end: the child is alive.
chayyim: life
חַיִּים
This noun from the same root names the life restored when the child’s nefesh returns.
THE PATTERN
Where death or lifelessness holds sway, God’s life-giving action brings life back.
O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis calls the formed human a “living soul” (nefesh chayyah), using the same noun that returns to the child here. The shared word holds the restoration close to the child himself: his living soul returns, and he lives.
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