What Does Exodus 11:4 Mean?
And Moses said, Thus says the LORD, About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt.
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, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt:THE KEY
The one named “drawn out” announces that the LORD goes out into Egypt’s midst, holding emergence and entry together at midnight.
THE MEANING
The sentence holds you at midnight, hearing the LORD announce movement through Egypt’s midst. The next verse names the consequence: the firstborn die, so this movement carries the terror of lethal judgment. Moses’s name, “drawn out,” echoes the words “go out” within that announcement.
THE ROOT
יֹצֵא
yōṣēʾ
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out, come forth, or emerge.
“I will go out” in this verse is yōṣēʾ. The verse uses a verb of emergence: the LORD is the one going out into Egypt’s midst. In Exodus 12:41, the same יצא root names Israel’s own going out, binding the announced divine movement and the people’s departure through one Hebrew root.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣĕʾû: They went out; a plural form of יצא.
יָצְאוּ
Exodus 12:41 uses this form for Israel’s departure from Egypt, carrying the same root into the outcome of the announcement.
yĕṣîʾāh: Going out, departure.
יְצִיאָה
This noun makes explicit the departure already contained in the verb used here.
môṣāʾ: Outlet, source, or point of emergence.
מוֹצָא
It shows the root’s reach from the act of going out to what comes forth.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōšeh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
To draw out, pull out.
The name is tied in the text to being drawn out of water. Here Moses’s voice introduces another motion of going out; the roots differ, but the verse echoes emergence through both the speaker’s name and the LORD’s action.
ALSO GROWS
mĕšîtihû: I drew him out; the wording used to explain Moses’s name in Exodus 2:10.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
It makes the name’s root meaning explicit: Moses is named through an act of drawing out.
yimšēnî: He drew me out, as in the song of deliverance in Psalm 18:17.
יִמְשֵׁנִי
This form shows the root describing a person brought out from danger.
בְּתוֹךְ
bĕtôḵ
GROWS FROM
תוך
Interior, middle, or what lies within.
“into the midst of Egypt” in this verse is bĕtôḵ. The location is inside Egypt, not at its boundary: the announced going out happens בתוך מצרים, in Egypt’s midst. The pairing of יצא, “go out,” with תוך, “interior,” places the movement at the center of the threatened place.
ALSO GROWS
tôḵ: Middle, interior, or midst.
תּוֹךְ
This is the core location word inside the verse’s phrase “in the midst of Egypt.”
bĕtôḵô: Within it, in its interior.
בְּתוֹכוֹ
This form shows how the same root locates an action inside something, sharpening the force of “in the midst.”
THE PATTERN
Divine judgment enters the midst of a people and reaches particular bodies.
For I will cross through the land of Egypt this night, and I will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the LORD.So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time, and there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men.And at once the messenger of the LORD struck him, because he did not give God the weight, and he was eaten by worms and breathed out his last.THE THREAD
And it came to be at the end of four hundred and thirty years, and on this very bone of the day it came to be, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.Both verses use the root יצא: here the LORD says, “I go out”; there the hosts of the LORD “went out” from Egypt. The same Hebrew verb binds the announced divine movement to the people’s departure.
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