What Does 2 Chronicles 9:4 Mean in the King James?
And the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cupbearers also, and their apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the LORD; there was no more spirit in her.
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 Hebrew word translated “spirit” is ruach, which also means breath and wind, so the verse describes wonder reaching her as breathlessness.
THE MEANING
When you behold a wisdom so complete that its details answer your questions, astonishment can take your breath before you can speak. The verse names that inward pause as ruach gone from her: wonder registers in the body, not only in thought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that spirit is a disembodied faculty: the word here is ruach, also breath, so the encounter reaches the body’s breathing.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוּחַ
ruach
Wind, breath, moving air; the animating inward force.
The Hebrew word translated “spirit” also names breath and wind. English can make her reaction sound like an abstract feeling, while ruach keeps it bodily: the sight leaves her breathless.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind; moving air.
רוּחַ
This sense shows that ruach is something moving, not a sealed-off inner faculty.
ruach: Breath; animating inner life.
רוּחַ
This sense makes her astonishment feel like the loss of breath as well as an inward response.
THE PATTERN
The biblical ruach or pneuma names inner life that appears as breath, courage, or inward witness.
And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:THE THREAD
And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.Joshua 2:11 uses the same Hebrew word, ruach, rendered “courage” where 2 Chronicles renders it “spirit.” The shared wording shows how English separates inward resolve from spirit, though Hebrew holds them in one word.
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