What Does Exodus 10:15 Mean?
For they covered the eye of the whole land, so that it went dark. They ate all the grass of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left, and no green remained in the trees, or in the grass of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
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
For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses the same root for what the hail “left” and what finally “remained”, the locusts consume the remnant itself.
THE MEANING
You meet devastation in sequence: the locusts cover the land’s face, darken it, and consume the herbs and fruit the hail left. The final image is absolute, no green remains anywhere in Egypt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what survives one devastation is therefore safe: the verse names what the hail left, then shows it consumed.
THE ROOT
הוֹתִיר
hōtîr
GROWS FROM
יתר
Remain over, be left behind, or be in excess.
The verse uses this root first for what the hail had left, then again in נוֹתַר (nōṯar, “remained”) for what is no longer left after the locusts. Hebrew makes the remnant and its disappearance part of one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
nōṯar: remained; was left over
נוֹתַר
This later form shares the root יתר and echoes the hail’s הוֹתִיר: what one force left behind is erased by the next.
yeter: remainder; surplus
יֶתֶר
Exodus 10:5 uses this noun for the crop that escaped the hail, naming the locusts’ next food as the remainder.
THE PATTERN
As devastation advances, it consumes the green remainder until the land is bare.
They will cover the eye of the land, so that no one can see the land. They will eat what has escaped, the remnant that was left to you from the hail, and they will eat every tree that sprouts for you out of the field.What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.The first messenger sounds, and there comes hail and fire mixed with blood, and they are thrown upon the earth; and the third part of the trees is burned down, and all green grass is burned down.THE THREAD
They will cover the eye of the land, so that no one can see the land. They will eat what has escaped, the remnant that was left to you from the hail, and they will eat every tree that sprouts for you out of the field.Exodus 10:5 names the hail’s surviving crop with יֶתֶר (yeter, “remainder”), from the same root as הוֹתִיר (“had left”) and נוֹתַר (“remained”) here. The root links the remnant named in one verse to what the locusts consume in the other.
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