What Does Revelation 18:13 Mean?
And cinnamon, and fragrances, and incense, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and bodies, and living souls of humankind.
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 cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.THE KEY
The inventory ends by naming human bodies and living souls as merchandise.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a trade that counts spices, grain, animals, and vehicles alongside human bodies and living souls. It names the whole person as something this commerce is willing to price.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that exploitation takes only a person’s labor: the list names the body and the living soul as merchandise.
THE ROOT
σώματα
sōmata
GROWS FROM
σῶμα
sōma
body; an embodied person
The Greek word rendered “slaves” is literally “bodies.” Set beside horses and chariots in the inventory, it brings the human body itself into view as something being traded.
ALSO GROWS
sōma: Body; an embodied person.
σῶμα
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “bodies,” naming the person in bodily form within the trade list.
sōmatikos: Bodily; relating to the body.
σωματικός
In 1 Timothy 4:8, the same stem describes bodily exercise, showing its connection to physical existence.
ψυχὰς
psychas
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
living soul; the living self
“souls” in this verse is psychas. The word is ψυχή (psychē), understood as a living soul. Together with “bodies,” it names both the embodied person and the living self at the point where the inventory puts people up for trade.
ALSO GROWS
psychē: Living soul; life or self.
ψυχή
This is the singular form of “souls” in the verse, retaining the sense of a living person rather than an abstract object.
psychikos: Natural; pertaining to the living self.
ψυχικός
In 1 Corinthians 2:14, this related form describes the “natural man,” extending the same word-family to a person’s living self.
THE PATTERN
When people are made tradable, scripture names human beings among the commodities and exposes the violence in that exchange.
And he who steals a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, is surely put to death.Javan, Tubal, and Meshech were your traders; they set down the living souls of humankind and vessels of bronze in your market.for fornicators, for those who lie in bed with men, for those who make men captives, for those who speak falsely, for oath-breakers, and if anything else lies against the healthy teaching;THE THREAD
For what does it profit a human, if he gains the whole world and is damaged in his living soul? Or what will a human give in exchange for his living soul?“Soul” here is the same Greek word, ψυχή (psychē), that Revelation names in its inventory. Matthew puts the value of that living self against the gain of the whole world, sharpening the cost hidden in Revelation’s list.
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