What Does Psalm 106:15 Mean?
And he gave them their request, but sent thinness into their living soul.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.THE KEY
A request can be granted while the living soul that wanted it grows thin.
THE MEANING
The verse holds receiving and depletion together: the request is granted, yet leanness enters the living soul. Getting what you ask for does not guarantee that it nourishes the life within you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving what you asked for proves it is giving you life.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
The living self: a person, life, or appetite.
“living soul” in this verse is nefesh. Nefesh is the living self that can long and be satisfied, not a detached inner compartment. So leanness in the nefesh reaches the life carrying the appetite.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul or person.
נֶפֶשׁ
It shows that the verse locates the depletion in the living person.
naphash: To be refreshed or restored.
נָפַשׁ
The related verb’s sense of refreshment sharpens the contrast with a soul made lean.
רָזוֹן
razon
GROWS FROM
ר־ז־ה
To grow lean or thin.
“thinness” in this verse is razon. The word gives the aftermath a stark image of inward thinning. The request is granted, but the verse still names a real diminishment within the living soul.
ALSO GROWS
razah: To become lean or thin.
רָזָה
It makes leanness a change in condition, not merely a passing feeling.
razeh: Lean or thin.
רָזֶה
The related adjective gives the verse’s inward cost a concrete sense of being diminished.
שָׁלַח
shalach
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
To send forth, release, or stretch out.
The verse pairs giving with sending: the request is granted, and leanness is dispatched into the nefesh. Shalach keeps the consequence active in the sentence; it is sent into the life within.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: A sending away or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
It echoes the root’s sense of something being sent out or let go.
Shiloach: Sent; also the name of the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁילֹחַ
The name preserves the same sending image found in the verse’s verb.
THE PATTERN
What appetite acquires can still fail to nourish the life that holds it.
The lover of silver is not filled with silver, and the lover of the crowd is not filled with the harvest. This too is vapor.You have sown much and brought in little. You eat, but you are not filled. You drink, but you do not drink your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And the one who earns wages earns them into a pierced pouch.You ask, and do not take, because you ask badly, so that you may use it up upon your pleasures.THE THREAD
For this child I prayed, and the LORD has given me the request I asked of him.The word translated “petition” is שְׁאֵלָה (she’elah, “request”), from שָׁאַל (sha’al, “to ask”), the same root family behind “request” in Psalm 106:15. The shared root makes the contrast vivid: the word for an answered request does not itself tell whether the outcome nourishes the living soul.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us