What Does Exodus 11:1 Mean?
And the LORD said to Moses, One more stroke will I bring upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. After this he will let you go from here, and when he lets you go, he will surely drive you out from here altogether.
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 the LORD said unto Moses, Yet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh, and upon Egypt; afterwards he will let you go hence: when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.THE KEY
The one who withholds release becomes the force that drives the captive out.
THE MEANING
When you are held in a narrow place, the one gripping your movement does not have the final word. Pharaoh’s resistance turns into urgent expulsion, and the people’s departure becomes complete.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that release is impossible until the one holding you willingly lets go; here, the captor is compelled to send the people out.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלַּח
yeshallach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth, extend, release, let go.
The verb behind “let you go” means to send forth or release, making departure an action rather than merely a change of attitude. The sentence turns Pharaoh from gatekeeper into the agent of the departure he resists.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name associated with the waters of Shiloah.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters connect release with a flow that restores sight, extending the verse’s movement from confinement toward freedom.
shulchan: Table.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table carries the image of provision extended; the same root family opens release into something given room to receive.
גָּרֵשׁ יְגָרֵשׁ
garesh yegaresh
GROWS FROM
גרש
garash
Drive away, expel, banish.
“drive you out” in this verse is garesh yegaresh. The verb carries the force of driving away, and its emphatic construction presses that force: Pharaoh will surely expel them. Release becomes an exit so complete that the captor himself pushes the captive beyond his reach.
ALSO GROWS
megorash: Driven out, expelled.
מְגֹרָשׁ
This form makes explicit the force behind “thrust you out”: the people are not simply permitted to leave; they are driven out.
gerushin: Divorce, dismissal.
גֵּרוּשִׁין
The same root marks a severing of the bond, echoing how Pharaoh’s hold ends in a decisive separation.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
mashah
Draw out.
The naming scene in Exodus 2:10 links Moses’ name to being drawn out of water. Here, the one whose name carries that drawing-out stands as a whole people are drawn out of confinement.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: Draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the action associated with Moses’ name, now echoed in the people’s departure from Egypt.
Moshe: Moses; the one drawn out, as the naming scene presents it.
מֹשֶׁה
His name carries the pattern of being brought out that unfolds here for the people as a whole.
THE PATTERN
Release is a real movement out of confinement, sending the held person beyond the grip.
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 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.The command “Let my people go” uses שָׁלַח (shalach, send forth or release), the same root behind Pharaoh’s promised action here. What he first refuses as a command becomes, under the final plague, an expulsion so complete that he drives the people out.
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