What Does Genesis 6:17 Mean in the King James?
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
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 breath of life marks the creatures the flood destroys; here, breath is no shield from death.
THE MEANING
You are flesh living by breath, and your body does not hold life as its own guarantee. This verse holds the violence plainly: the flood reaches every breathing creature beneath heaven, and all die.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being alive makes a creature safe from destruction.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Breath; moving air, including wind.
The same Hebrew word can name breath, wind, and what English translations call spirit. Here it is joined to life, tying the breath within flesh to the creature’s vulnerability: the breath marks life, but does not shield it from the flood.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Moving air; wind.
רוּחַ
This is the same word as the breath in the verse, keeping wind and the breath of living creatures within one Hebrew term.
ruach: The breath that sustains life, sometimes rendered “spirit” in English.
רוּחַ
This sense makes the verse’s scope concrete: the flood reaches all flesh that carries the breath of life.
לְשַׁחֵת
leshachet
GROWS FROM
שחת
sh-ḥ-t
To ruin, spoil, or destroy.
The Hebrew root translated “destroy” here is also translated “corrupt” for the earth in Genesis 6:11. One root links the ruin already named in the earth with the destruction announced in this verse.
ALSO GROWS
shachat: To be ruined or become corrupt.
שָׁחַת
This root describes the earth as corrupt in Genesis 6:11, linking that condition with the destruction named here.
mashchit: One who ruins; a destroyer.
מַשְׁחִית
This related form shows the same root’s movement from ruin as a condition to ruin as an act.
חַיִּים
chayyim
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
To live; to be alive.
The word for life belongs to the same root family as words for the living and for a living creature. Paired with breath, it names life as something present in bodies, which is why the verse’s reach is “all flesh.”
ALSO GROWS
chay: Living; alive.
חַי
The shared root places the breath of life in the condition of being alive.
chayyah: A living creature; animal.
חַיָּה
This branch makes the scope of life concrete: the root can name the creatures whose breath the verse says the flood reaches.
THE PATTERN
Breath is the shared condition of creaturely life, and living bodies remain vulnerable to its ending.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;THE THREAD
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.Genesis 7:22 repeats “breath of life” and shows what Genesis 6:17 announces: every creature on dry land carrying that breath dies. The echo makes the flood’s reach physical and total.
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