What Does Genesis 6:13 Mean in the King James?
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
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
“Destroy” grows from the same Hebrew root that names the world’s corruption, joining the announced ruin to the corruption already filling it.
THE MEANING
Violence does not remain an isolated act: when it fills the shared ground, its damage reaches both the people and the world they inhabit. Before God, that ruin is already visible, and the verse names its consequence without softening it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The harm of violence can be confined to its immediate targets while the people who wield it and the world around them remain untouched.
THE ROOT
מַשְׁחִיתָם
mashchitam
GROWS FROM
שחת
To ruin, corrupt, or destroy.
“destroy” in this verse is mashchitam. The same root describes the earth as corrupt earlier in the passage and names the destruction announced here. One Hebrew seed joins the corruption filling the world to the ruin that follows; the English presents those as separate ideas.
ALSO GROWS
nishchatah: Was corrupted, was ruined.
נִשְׁחָתָה
In Genesis 6:11, this form describes the earth as corrupt before God, the condition named by the same root behind “destroy” here.
hishchit: Had corrupted, had ruined.
הִשְׁחִית
In Genesis 6:12, this form describes all flesh corrupting its way upon the earth, repeating the root immediately before the announced destruction.
THE PATTERN
Corruption that fills the world defiles its shared ground, and those who ruin the earth meet judgment.
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.THE THREAD
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.The words translated “corrupt” in this verse come from שחת (shachat), the same root behind “destroy” in verse 13. One root links what flesh does to its way with the ruin God announces.
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