Hebrew word · H7953
שָׁלָה
yeshel
to extract
BDB lists yēšel under šālâ, 'draw out, extract'. Many scholars connect it with nāšal, 'to slip off, draw off, clear away': sandals in Exodus 3:5 and Joshua 5:15, an axe-head flying off its handle in Deuteronomy 19:5, nations cleared out of the land in Deuteronomy 7:1, 22.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Qal) to draw out, extract
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
BDB lists yēšel under šālâ, 'draw out, extract'. Many scholars connect it with nāšal, 'to slip off, draw off, clear away': sandals in Exodus 3:5 and Joshua 5:15, an axe-head flying off its handle in Deuteronomy 19:5, nations cleared out of the land in Deuteronomy 7:1, 22. Either way, the picture is pulling something out of where it sits.
- Against the English
BSB/WEB: 'takes away'. KJV: 'taketh away'. YLT: 'cast off'. 'Takes away' is accurate but loses the physical picture of pulling out or stripping off.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Vulgate reads et non liberet Deus animam eius ('and God does not set free his soul'). Some modern scholars change the vowels to yiššāʾēl or yišʾal ('[his life] is demanded'). That is close to the picture in Luke 12:20, 'this night your life is demanded of you', though there is no proof that Luke depends on this verse.
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 27:8 יֵ֖שֶׁל he will take away
For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
Here: 'Draws out' or 'pulls off'. The life is taken out of the person the way a sword is drawn or a sandal pulled off (compare nashal in Exodus 3:5). The form is short and poetic, but it works as a plain 'when he draws out'.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.