Bible Strands
1 Samuel 2:6
The LORD brings death and gives life; He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — This declaration appears within a prayer sequence, positioned between statements describing the reversal of human prosperity and the divine control over poverty and exaltation.
The words — מֵמִ֣ית (me.Mit) = killing; וּ/מְחַיֶּ֑ה (u./me.chai.Yeh) = restoring to life.
The thread — The same divine prerogative over mortality appears in Deuteronomy 32:39 and Isaiah 26:19, while 2 Kings 5:7 records the king of Israel rhetorically questioning his own authority to kill or give life, not God speaking.
Why it lands — It requires the reader to acknowledge that human mortality and fate rest entirely on divine action rather than human merit or circumstance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 32:39 See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.
- Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For your dew is like the dew of the morning, and the earth will bring forth her dead.
- 2 Kings 5:7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and asked, “Am I God, killing and giving life, that this man expects me to cure a leper? Surely you can see that he is seeking a quarrel with me!”
- Job 5:18 For He wounds, but He also binds; He strikes, but His hands also heal.
- Jonah 2:2 saying: “In my distress I called to the LORD, and He answered me. From the belly of Sheol I called for help, and You heard my voice.
- Revelation 1:18 the Living One. I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of Death and of Hades.
- John 5:25 Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
- Hosea 6:1 Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us to pieces, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bind up our wounds.
- John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
- 1 Samuel 20:3 But David again vowed, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said, ‘Jonathan must not know of this, or he will be grieved.’ As surely as the LORD lives and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death.”