What Does 2 Samuel 14:14 Mean in the King James?
For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.
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
What death makes seem irretrievable, God meets with a plan so the one already driven away is not driven away for good.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you where loss feels irreversible: some things cannot be gathered back into their former shape. Yet God’s thought is active toward the one who is already driven away, so exile does not have to define the final relation. Grief and purposeful return stand in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being driven away means you are permanently beyond God’s reach.
THE ROOT
נִדָּח
niddāḥ
GROWS FROM
נדח
To drive away, thrust away, or cast out.
“banished / expelled” in this verse is niddāḥ. The KJV’s “banished” and “expelled” carry the same Hebrew root: the text says, in effect, that the driven-away one is not to be driven away from God. The repetition makes restoration address the exact condition of exile instead of erasing it.
ALSO GROWS
niddāḥ: A person driven away; an outcast.
נִדָּח
This is the word behind “banished,” naming the person in the condition of exile.
hiddiaḥ: To drive away or lead astray.
הִדִּיחַ
This verbal form makes clear that exile is an act of being pushed away, the very movement the verse says will not define the person’s end.
וְחָשַׁב מַחֲשָׁבוֹת
ve-chashav machashavot
GROWS FROM
חשב
To think, reckon, or plan.
The Hebrew repeats the root in the verb “he planned” and the noun “plans”, chashav machashavot, emphatically, “he plans plans.” “Devises means” keeps the result but conceals the echo of purposeful thought.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: A thought or plan.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The plural form in this verse is the “means” God devises; the English hides that it comes from the same root as “devises.”
cheshbon: An account, calculation, or reckoning.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch shows the root’s sense of considered thought, not a passing wish.
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
Living soul, life, or person.
The Hebrew word rendered “person” is nephesh, which can mean a living soul or life. It keeps a concrete living being in view rather than leaving “person” as an abstract status.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living soul, life, or person.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word in the verse’s phrase rendered “any person,” holding the living human being in view.
nafsho: His life or his living self.
נַפְשׁוֹ
This form shows how the same word can name an individual life, bringing the verse’s concern down to the person rather than a category.
THE PATTERN
God’s purpose reaches toward the one already driven away, keeping separation from becoming the final word.
If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?THE THREAD
If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:“Driven out” uses the same root, נדח, as this verse’s “banished” and “expelled.” Deuteronomy then says the one driven out is gathered from the farthest distance, making visible what “not expelled from him” means: distance does not prevent return.
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