What Does Psalm 104:29 Mean in the King James?
Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.
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 Hebrew pictures God gathering the breath back: its withdrawal ends life, and the body returns to dust.
THE MEANING
When God hides his face, you are troubled; when he gathers your breath, you die and return to dust. The verse holds your dependence on divine presence and breath alongside the body’s mortality.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that life continues through self-sufficiency: the breath sustaining the body is received and can be gathered back.
THE ROOT
תֹּסֵף
tosef
GROWS FROM
אָסַף
asaph
Gather, collect, draw together.
The verb behind “takest away” comes from אָסַף (asaph, gather or collect). Here it pictures breath being gathered back, adding a sense of recall to the translation’s removal.
ALSO GROWS
asaph: To gather or collect.
אָסַף
The verse uses this gathering image for what happens to the breath.
asuppah: A gathering or assembly.
אֲסֻפָּה
This noun makes the root’s sense of drawing things together visible in another form.
רוּחָם
rucham
GROWS FROM
רוּחַ
ruach
Breath, wind; moving air.
רוּחַ (ruach, breath or wind) is one Hebrew word whose range holds these meanings together. Here it names the breath on which living bodies depend.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind or moving air.
רוּחַ
The same word used for breath can also name air moving around the living body.
rucho: His breath.
רוּחוֹ
This form appears in Psalm 146:4, where breath goes forth and the person returns to the earth.
יְשׁוּבוּן
yeshuvun
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back, return.
שׁוּב (shuv, turn back or return) names the body’s last movement as a return to dust. The root lets the phrase carry the sense of going back, not merely ending.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn back or return.
שׁוּב
This is the root of the verb translated “return” in the verse.
teshuvah: A return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same return movement in another form.
THE PATTERN
Living bodies depend on received breath; when it is gathered away, life ends and the body returns to dust.
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.Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.THE THREAD
His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.Both verses use רוּחַ (ruach, breath) for what sustains life. Psalm 146 makes the movement explicit: breath goes forth, and the person returns to the earth.
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