Genesis 7:22

Summary

Genesis 7:22 states that every creature possessing "the breath of the spirit of life" in its nostrils, among all that were on dry ground, died. The verse closes the flood narrative's description of universal death by specifying the vital sign that marked the affected creatures: breath in the nostrils.

Key words

• nishmat ("breath of", H5397) — feminine singular construct, the first term in a three-word construct chain, meaning it must be read together with the following noun ("breath of...").
• ruach ("breath/spirit of", H7307) — feminine singular construct, second link in the chain; it does not stand alone but connects nishmat to chayyim.
• chayyim ("life", H2416) — masculine plural noun completing the construct chain; the plural form is common in Hebrew for abstract nouns like "life."
• appayv ("his/its nostrils", H639) — masculine dual construct with 3rd person singular suffix; the dual form marks the paired nostrils, and the suffix ties the noun back to the subject kol ("all").
• metu ("they died", H4191) — Qal perfect 3rd person plural, indicating a completed action affecting a plural (collective) subject.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around two occurrences of kol ("all," H3605), each introduced by the relative particle 'asher ("that," H834A). The first kol...'asher clause identifies the subject: "all that had nishmat-ruach chayyim in its nostrils." This is a three-noun construct chain — nishmat of ruach of chayyim — literally "breath of the spirit of life," a stacked genitive construction rarely found in a single verse. The second kol...'asher clause narrows the scope: "from all that was on the charavah ("dry ground," H2724)." The verb metu ("they died," H4191), a Qal perfect, appears only once at the end, governing both restrictive clauses and confirming that the action is complete.

The dual form of appayv ("its nostrils," H639) is grammatically notable: Hebrew marks paired body parts with a dual ending, so the noun itself encodes "two nostrils" without needing a separate word for "two."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's triple construct chain nishmat-ruach chayyim ("breath of the spirit of life") is rendered more simply in the LXX as pnoēn zōēs ("breath of life"), omitting an equivalent for ruach. The Vulgate's spiraculum vitae ("breath of life") likewise compresses the three Hebrew nouns into two. Additionally, the Vulgate phrase "in terra" ("in the earth") replaces the Hebrew's specific reference to "nostrils" (appayv) with a broader locative expression, shifting the emphasis from the anatomical detail to a general location.