What Does Deuteronomy 11:4 Mean?
And what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots, how he caused the waters of the Sea of Reeds to flow over their faces as they pursued you, and how the LORD has made them perish to this day.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day;THE KEY
The army pursuing you from Mitzrayim, the two narrows, is the one that perishes, so the force that closes in does not own your ending.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the pursuit in view: horses, chariots, and army all drive after you, and the LORD brings them to perish in the sea. The narrowness that sends them after you does not keep its grip; its power comes to an end. “Unto this day” leaves that ending present in the verse now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that what pursues you has already determined where you will end. Here, the pursuer is the one whose end is named.
THE ROOT
וַיְאַבְּדֵם
wayʾabbedem
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
Perish, be lost; in a causative form, bring to ruin.
“made them perish” in this verse is wayʾabbedem. The verb here is causative: the LORD makes them perish. The same root also names being lost and perishing, so “destroyed” holds an image of being brought to ruin and losing the way.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: Perish; be lost.
אָבַד
The root’s basic verbal sense is loss and perishing; here the pursuers are brought to that end.
ʾōvēd: Perishing; one who is lost.
אָבֵד
This form describes a state of loss, extending the root’s image beyond the act of destruction.
ʾăvaddōn: Destruction; ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun names the ruin itself, another branch from the same root of loss.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
Bind, press, be narrow; מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim) carries the image of the two narrows.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the image of constriction, and its army is the force pursuing you here. The verse names that force’s end: the power closing in does not endure.
ALSO GROWS
mētsar: A narrow place; a strait.
מֵצַר
This word gives the image of a confined passage, the constriction carried in Mitzrayim’s name.
tsārāh: Distress; trouble.
צָרָה
Distress is another branch of the same image of being pressed into a narrow place.
THE PATTERN
A force set in motion to pursue or destroy another can become the force that brings its source to ruin.
And the waters turned back and covered the chariots and the horsemen, all the army of the Great House that came after them into the sea; not even one of them remained.But when she came before the king, he said through the scroll that his evil plan, which he had planned against the Jews, should turn back upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the tree.Then Jesus said to him, Turn your sword back to its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.THE THREAD
I wander like a sheep that loses the way; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commands.The word translated “destroyed” here is a causative form of אבד (ʾ-b-d), the root for perishing and being lost. Psalm 119 uses the same root for a sheep that has gone astray, opening the destruction language onto the deeper image of being brought to loss.
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