What Does Genesis 21:15 Mean in the King James?
And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs.
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 binds the end of provision to a forceful act: as the water reaches its end, the child is cast beneath the shrub.
THE MEANING
The water is gone; she casts the child under a shrub. The verse leaves the scarcity and the severity of that act together in view, without explaining either away.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכְלוּ
vayikhlu
GROWS FROM
כלה
k-l-h
finish, come to an end, be consumed
The verb translated “spent” comes from a root meaning to finish or reach an end. Its branches carry that sense of completion, marking the water’s exhaustion as a hard threshold in the scene.
ALSO GROWS
kalah: come to an end, be finished
כָּלָה
This basic form makes the water’s depletion a reaching of the end, not just a change in amount.
takhlit: end, completion, limit
תַּכְלִית
This branch makes the root’s sense of an ending concrete: the water has reached its limit.
וַתַּשְׁלֵךְ
vattashlekh
GROWS FROM
שלך
sh-l-k
throw, cast
The English “cast” already carries force, and the Hebrew root keeps that force in the action. The child is not merely described as being near the shrub; the verb names an act of casting him there.
ALSO GROWS
shalakh: throw, cast
שָׁלַךְ
This basic form shares the verse’s sense of a forceful act of putting something down or away.
hishlikh: cast, throw away
הִשְׁלִיךְ
This related form makes the root’s throwing action vivid alongside the child being cast beneath the shrub.
הַיֶּלֶד
hayyeled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
bear, beget, bring forth
The word for “child” shares its root with the verb for bearing or begetting. The root keeps the child’s bond to the one who bears him present inside a verse whose action places them apart.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: bear, give birth, beget
יָלַד
This verb reveals the life-bearing sense behind the word for the child in the verse.
yaldut: childhood, youth
יַלְדוּת
This branch keeps the root connected to the vulnerable stage of life named by “child.”
THE PATTERN
When a child’s life reaches the edge of survival, scripture names the extremity without disguising it.
And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.THE THREAD
And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, Let me not see the death of the child. And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept.“The child” is הַיֶּלֶד (hayyeled, the child), from ילד (y-l-d, to bear or beget), the same word and root carried into the next verse. That shared root keeps the bond between Hagar and her child present as the next verse brings her fear and grief into view.
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