What Does Exodus 10:9 Mean?
And Moses said, We will go with our youth and with our elders, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds we will go, for a feast to the LORD is ours.
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 said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD.THE KEY
Moses (מֹשֶׁה, Mosheh, “drawn out”) speaks a freedom that leaves no generation or livelihood behind.
THE MEANING
Freedom here moves as a whole household: the young and old, daughters and sons, flocks and herds all belong within the going. The feast travels with the people; it does not require their lives to be divided into what may go and what must remain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the claim that freedom can be partial: the people may go while their children, elders, or livelihood remain under another’s control.
THE ROOT
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
To draw out.
“Moses” in this verse is Mosheh. The name carries the motion of being drawn out. Here that movement expands from one life to a whole people, with every generation and herd included in the departure.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the root action echoed in the explanation of Moses’ name.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This is the verb form used when Moses is named in Exodus 2:10, giving the name its “drawn out” nature.
Mosheh: Moses; the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name links the speaker’s own identity with the movement of being drawn out.
חַג
ḥag
GROWS FROM
חגג
To keep a festival or make a pilgrimage.
“for a feast to the LORD is ours” in this verse is ḥag. The feast word carries a pilgrimage sense: this is a celebration the people enter by moving. Its place after the full list ties the feast to the whole community’s departure.
ALSO GROWS
ḥag: Feast, festival, or pilgrimage festival.
חַג
This is the word translated “feast” here, naming the shared observance the people go to keep.
ḥāgag: To keep a festival or make a pilgrimage.
חָגַג
The verb presents the feast as an act the people enter, not merely an event they watch.
ḥagigah: Festival celebration or festival offering.
חֲגִיגָה
This related word carries the festival into its celebration and offering.
נֵלֵךְ
nēlēkh
GROWS FROM
הלך
To walk or go.
“We will go” in this verse is nēlēkh. The same verb frames both halves of the declaration while the repeated list adds each generation and herd to its company. The departure is a shared movement, not a permission limited to one part of life.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To walk or go.
הָלַךְ
This is the root verb behind “we will go.”
holekh: One who walks or goes.
הוֹלֵךְ
The participle keeps the same moving sense in the figure of a person on the way.
halikhah: Walking or a journey.
הֲלִיכָה
This noun shows how the root can name movement as an ongoing path.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance gathers the whole household and what sustains it into the movement.
And the LORD said to Noah, Come, you and all your house into the ark, for I have seen you aligned before my face in this generation.Our livestock also will go with us. Not one hoof shall be left, for from it we will take to serve the LORD our God. And we do not know with what we will serve the LORD until we come there.And they said, Lean your weight on the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, and you will be delivered, you and your house.THE THREAD
Our livestock also will go with us. Not one hoof shall be left, for from it we will take to serve the LORD our God. And we do not know with what we will serve the LORD until we come there.The same Hebrew root הלך (halakh, “walk/go”) carries the going of the people and the going of their cattle. The movement admits no half-release: the people, their worship, and the animals that sustain them remain together.
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