What Does Exodus 10:3 Mean?
And Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh, and said to him, Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews. How long will you refuse to bend low before me? Let my people go, so that they may serve me.
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 Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.THE KEY
The order to let go also means to send forth: freedom moves the people from Pharaoh’s grip into service to the LORD.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present collision between authority that refuses to yield and the LORD’s command to release the people held under it. Their freedom has a direction: they are released to serve the LORD. Captivity is a contest over who claims their labor.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that captivity lasts as long as its ruler refuses to release it. Pharaoh’s refusal does not outrank the LORD’s claim on the people.
THE ROOT
שַׁלַּח
shallach
GROWS FROM
שלח
š-l-ḥ
Send forth, release, let go; extend the hand.
“Let my people go” in this verse is shallach. In שַׁלַּח (shallach, release or send forth), letting go and sending are one movement: the people leave Pharaoh’s grasp for service to the LORD. The root’s sent-waters branch also carries an image of sight restored, making release a passage from constriction toward seeing again.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: Sending, dismissal, release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the command’s sense visible: the people are sent out by being released.
Shiloach: A pool or stream; its name carries the sense of sent.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters of Siloam are associated with restored sight, extending release into an image of seeing again.
shulchan: Table; provision spread out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table carries the root’s outward movement into provision extended toward others.
וְיַעַבְדֻנִי
weya'avduni
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
Work, serve.
“serve” in this verse is weya'avduni. The root names both the servant and the service. Freedom here has a destination: the people’s labor is no longer claimed by Pharaoh, and the verse names its new object as the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The same root names the person whose service is at stake in the verse.
avodah: Work, service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch names the work that follows release; the command changes whose claim the people serve.
לֵעָנֹת
le'anot
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
Afflict, press down, humble.
“bend low before me” in this verse is le'anot. The question asks whether Pharaoh will stop resisting being lowered before the LORD; the root also names affliction. Its sound-shape places the ruler’s demanded humility beside the people’s oppression without making those experiences equal.
ALSO GROWS
ani: Afflicted, poor.
עָנִי
This branch names a person who has been brought low, echoing the pressure borne by those held under power.
oni: Affliction, misery.
עֳנִי
The noun carries the same root into the condition of suffering that release confronts.
THE PATTERN
Release breaks captivity and opens a life no longer governed by the power that held it.
And the LORD spoke to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh, and say to him, Thus says the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me.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.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
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 same שַׁלַּח (shalach, release or send forth) that commands Pharaoh to let the people go appears here in the release of the oppressed and the breaking of every yoke. The echo shows that release is the undoing of oppression, not merely a change in who holds power.
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