What Does Exodus 10:10 Mean?
And he said to them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones. Look to it, for evil is before your faces.
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 he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you.THE KEY
The word for “let you go” is שָׁלַח (shalach, send forth or release), and Pharaoh turns that language of freedom into a taunt while placing danger directly before their faces.
THE MEANING
A controlling voice can make freedom sound dangerous. Pharaoh speaks of sending them forth sarcastically, then puts harm in front of their faces and brings their children into the threat. The verse exposes how danger can be used to make release feel unsafe.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that a threat proves freedom is unsafe: the threat comes from the voice that withholds release.
THE ROOT
אֲשַׁלַּח
ʾăšallaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
Send, send forth, or release.
“let you go” in this verse is ʾăšallaḥ. Pharaoh’s verb grows from שלח (shalach), a word that holds sending forth and release together. Its branches carry that movement into a person sent, a table spread before someone, and the waters named “Sent”; here, Pharaoh uses release-language as a threat.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away; release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This form makes explicit the release hidden inside Pharaoh’s “let you go.”
shaliaḥ: A messenger or agent who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
The word keeps the root’s movement visible: someone is sent forth from the one who sends.
shulḥan: A table, something spread or set out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The same root family extends from sending forth to what is laid out before others, a striking openness beside Pharaoh’s withheld release.
Shiloach: The sent waters of Shiloah, also called Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name is glossed “Sent” in John 9:7, where water and restored sight replace Pharaoh’s image of harm ahead.
THE PATTERN
Release is the hinge by which the oppressed are sent out from constraint into freedom.
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.The Greek name Σιλωάμ (Siloam, “Sent”) is associated with Hebrew שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, “sent”), from שלח (shalach, “send forth or release”). Here the sent water restores sight, a vivid counter-image to Pharaoh’s claim that harm lies ahead.
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