What Does Deuteronomy 6:21 Mean?
Then you shall say to your son, We were Pharaoh's servants in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand.
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
Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand:THE KEY
The story passed to the next generation names bondage honestly, but gives the decisive action to the LORD: he brought us out.
THE MEANING
This verse gives your freedom a first-person plural: “we” were bound, and the LORD brought us out. The constriction is real, but it is not the final condition; deliverance breaks its hold and becomes a story the next generation can carry.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that bondage is your defining inheritance: the story does not end with “we were bondmen,” but continues with “the LORD brought us out.”
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ
vayyotsi'enu
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
To go out, come forth, or exit.
“brought us out” in this verse is vayyotsi'enu. The verb here is causative: the LORD causes “us” to go out. The verse holds deliverance as a movement out of constriction, received through a mighty hand rather than made by the bondmen themselves.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi'ah: Departure; going out or exit.
יְצִיאָה
It makes the deliverance a real passage out of the narrow place, not just a change in how bondage is described.
motsa: An outlet or way out.
מוֹצָא
The shared root carries the image of an opening through which those held in bondage can emerge.
עֲבָדִים
avadim
GROWS FROM
עבד
avad
To work or serve.
“servants” in this verse is avadim. The same root names both the people serving and the labor or service that defines their condition. The verse does not hide their bondage; it places that truth inside a larger movement out.
ALSO GROWS
eved: A servant; here, a bondman or slave.
עֶבֶד
This singular form carries the same root into the person whose life is bound to service.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
It exposes the laboring system behind the identity “bondmen”: the bondage orders both the work and the people doing it.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance moves people out of bondage, and remembrance keeps that movement alive across generations.
And Moses said to the people, Remember this day, when you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by a strong hand the LORD brought you out from this place. No risen bread shall be eaten.He brings them out of darkness and the valley of deepest darkness, and tears their bonds apart.Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.THE THREAD
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Exodus 20:2 uses the same root, יצא (yatsa), “to go out,” in “brought thee out.” Here, that deliverance becomes a story told from parent to child; in Exodus, it is also the ground from which the covenant speaks.
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