What Does Exodus 22:18 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
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 verse makes the addressee an active agent in withholding the sorceress’s life.
THE MEANING
This sentence places before you a direct command to deny life to a woman identified as a sorceress. Its Hebrew verb makes the addressee the one who does not keep her alive, and the verse states no qualification or remedy.
THE ROOT
תְּחַיֶּה
techayyeh
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live or be alive; in this verb form, to keep someone alive.
“suffer ... to live” in this verse is techayyeh. In addition to the KJV’s sense of allowing her to live, the Hebrew verb is causative: the addressee is told not to keep her alive. The grammar makes the withholding of life an action assigned to the addressee.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Alive; a living one.
חַי
It names the living state this verb form would maintain.
chayyim: Life.
חַיִּים
It names the life that the command here withholds.
מְכַשֵּׁפָה
mekhashephah
GROWS FROM
כשף
k-sh-p
To practice sorcery.
“witch” in this verse is mekhashephah. This feminine form names a practitioner; related forms name the sorcerer and sorceries. The verse’s lethal command targets the person identified by this practice, while the root itself names the practice rather than death.
ALSO GROWS
mekhasheph: A male practitioner of sorcery.
מְכַשֵּׁף
It shows that the same root names practitioners of either sex.
keshephim: Sorceries.
כְּשָׁפִים
It names the practice associated with the person in this verse.
THE PATTERN
Across these passages, sorcery and related spirit practices meet boundaries that forbid participation, impose death, or place practitioners outside.
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.THE THREAD
Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.Exodus 7:11 calls the sorcerers מְכַשְּׁפִים (mekhashephim, sorcerers), from the same כ־שׁ־ף (k-sh-p, practice sorcery) root. The shared word-family places the woman named here and Pharaoh’s male practitioners in the same lexical category; this verse attaches the command not to keep alive.
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