BREATH, THE BREATH OF LIFE — and, by extension, any body that has one. Genesis 2:7 (already on these pages) gives the noun its gentlest use: Jehovah forms the human from dust and breathes into his nostrils nishmat chayim, the breath of life, and the human becomes a living being. Deuteronomy 20:16 turns the identical noun into a technical term for the opposite — the nations of the land must be left with kol neshamah, not a single breathing thing, alive. ⚠ Kol neshamah stands in four verses of the Hebrew Bible: Deuteronomy 20:16, and three narratives reporting a command like it carried out — Joshua 11:11 and 11:14, of the campaign against Hazor, and 1 Kings 15:29, where King Baasha exterminates the whole house of Jeroboam in a purge that has nothing to do with Canaan at all (none of the three yet on these pages). The word for what makes a body alive becomes, three times over, the word for leaving no body alive. → first discussed at Deut 20:16