What Does Exodus 10:2 Mean?
So that you may recount in the ears of your son and of your son's son what I have done in Egypt, and my signs which I have set among them, and you will perceive that I am the LORD.
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 that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD.THE KEY
Hebrew’s root for “tell” also means “count” and gives rise to “book”: the signs become a counted record carried into your ears, so knowing the LORD outlives the event.
THE MEANING
This verse places you in a chain of hearing: what is done is spoken into the ears of children and their children. The signs become more than a past event; their telling lets you know the LORD now. What is carried forward is not only a report of what happened but recognition of who is revealed through it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can know the LORD only through what you personally witness: the signs reach you through another person’s telling.
THE ROOT
תְּסַפֵּר
tesapper
GROWS FROM
ספר
safar
To count, recount, or relate.
“recount” in this verse is tesapper. The root links telling with counting: each act is recounted as part of a remembered account. The related word for “book” shows how recounting can become a record that carries those signs beyond the moment.
ALSO GROWS
mispar: number, count
מִסְפָּר
The shared root makes telling akin to counting out what happened, giving each act a place in the account.
sefer: book, written record
סֵפֶר
A recounting can become a record, carrying the signs into the hearing of later generations.
sippur: account, story
סִפּוּר
The signs become a story that can be heard and remembered after the event has passed.
וִידַעְתֶּם
veyida’tem
GROWS FROM
ידע
yada‘
To know or perceive.
“perceive that I am the LORD” in this verse is veyida’tem. The purpose of the recounting is not simply to preserve information; it is that you may know the LORD. The root carries knowing as perception, so the heard account brings recognition into the present.
ALSO GROWS
yada‘: to know, perceive
יָדַע
This is the root verb behind the verse’s purpose: the recounting leads to knowing.
yedi’ah: knowledge, knowing
יְדִיעָה
The noun carries the same root into the state of knowing that the verse says the telling brings.
hodi’a: to make known, inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form shows the root’s link between making something known and the knowing named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s acts become knowable across generations when they are recounted, heard, and preserved.
Only guard yourself, and guard your living soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they turn aside from your heart all the days of your life. But make them known to your children, and to your children's children.We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.But these are written so that you might lean your full weight on this, that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God, and that by leaning your weight you might have life in his nature.THE THREAD
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.The Hebrew verb translated “shewing” is מְסַפְּרִים (mesapperim), meaning “recounting,” from the same root ספר (safar) as “tell” in Exodus. Both verses make recounting the way the LORD’s works remain audible to the next generation.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us