What Does Exodus 11:2 Mean?
Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man ask of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, vessels of silver and vessels of gold.
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
Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.THE KEY
The word KJV renders “borrow” means “ask,” so the movement out of Egypt passes through a spoken request at the neighbor’s door.
THE MEANING
Need takes concrete form here: a spoken request reaches a neighbor and names silver and gold. Deliverance touches material life and ordinary relationships, not only an inward state.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that deliverance is only inward: here, the movement out includes tangible silver and gold.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁאֲלוּ
yish'alu
GROWS FROM
שאל
sha'al
to ask or request
The verb means “they ask” or “they request”; the next chapter makes the exchange explicit when the Egyptians give what the people ask for. The word carries the act of asking, while “borrow” adds the shade of a loan.
ALSO GROWS
sha'al: to ask or request
שָׁאַל
This is the root verb beneath “borrow”; it makes the request itself central to the verse.
she'elah: a request or petition
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun from the same root shows that the spoken asking is a recognizable form of request, not merely an implied transaction.
THE PATTERN
A voiced request through an ordinary relationship can open a path toward needed provision.
And the LORD gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they lent them what they asked. And they stripped the Egyptians.Then he said, Go, ask for vessels from outside, from all your neighbors, even empty vessels. Do not ask for only a few.And he said to them, Which of you has a friend, and goes to him in the middle of the night, and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves.THE THREAD
And the LORD gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they lent them what they asked. And they stripped the Egyptians.The phrase “such things as they required” continues the root שאל (sha’al, to ask or request) from this verse. What KJV renders as “borrow” is answered by the next chapter’s account of the Egyptians giving the people what they asked for.
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