ḥayah

This is the basic Hebrew word for the experience of being alive. In its simplest uses it describes someone who is still alive and breathing rather than dead. The ancestral lists in Genesis use it for each patriarch: he was born, he lived so many years, and he died. Ordinary speech uses it whenever someone asks whether a person is still alive, whether a wounded man will survive, or whether a city will be spared.

The same word reaches further to cover the moment when life is restored. A dying man recovers from his illness and lives. A discouraged man drinks water and his spirit revives. The dry bones in Ezekiel's valley stand up and live. The man who touched Elisha's bones in the tomb came back to life. The word treats recovery and resurrection the same way: life returning to where it had nearly or entirely gone.

Both uses share a common core. Whether the question is whether someone is still alive, how long they will go on living, or whether they have come back from the edge of death, the word names the same reality from different angles: life as something that can be present, continued, or restored.

When the verb turns outward to describe what one person does for another's life, the emphasis shifts from experiencing life to causing or permitting it. The most concrete form is sparing an enemy or captive who could otherwise be killed. The midwives let the Hebrew boys live. Rahab asks that her family be kept alive. A king spares a defeated enemy. David's men are told to let the young women live. The question each time is whether someone with power over another's life chooses to preserve it.

A second, more intensive use describes actively restoring life to someone who was near death or who had died. God revives and raises up. The psalmist asks repeatedly to be revived according to God's word, his love, his judgments. Elisha's servant asked whether the Shunammite's son could be restored. God claims in Deuteronomy that he is the one who kills and who makes alive. This is the same word, but here the agent is the giver of life, not merely its preserver.

Both uses share the direction of the action: life is being sustained, given, or restored by one to another. The word itself does not distinguish how dramatic the rescue is; context supplies that. What the word insists on is that someone other than the one who lives is the agent of the living.