What Does Exodus 12:50 Mean?
And all the children of Israel did so; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
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
Thus did all the children of Israel; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so did they.THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb frames the people’s action before and after the command, showing instruction taking shape as lived action.
THE MEANING
The word reaches you as something that takes form in shared life, not merely as information you hear. “All” gives the response a collective shape: the passage presents a whole people acting on what they receive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that hearing an instruction is the same as its fulfillment: here, the word becomes visible in the act that follows it.
THE ROOT
צִוָּה
tsivvah
GROWS FROM
צוה
ts-w-h
to command, charge, or appoint
“commanded” in this verse is tsivvah. This charge stands between the LORD’s word and the people’s action. The repeated verb for “did” shows the command taking form in what the people carry out.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: commandment
מִצְוָה
It shows that the command belongs to a wider family of words for an entrusted charge.
tzav: command or order
צַו
It keeps the sense of a direction given to be carried forward.
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ
vaya'asu asu
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
to do, make, or carry out
“did” in this verse is vaya'asu asu. The same root appears twice: first for what the people do in accordance with the command, then for what they do. The repetition makes the response concrete, the word is present in the action it takes shape through.
ALSO GROWS
ma'aseh: deed or work
מַעֲשֶׂה
A command carried out becomes a deed, joining the spoken direction to something done.
oseh: one who does or makes
עֹשֶׂה
This form names the actor, bringing the people themselves into the root’s family of action.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
to draw out
The name holds the movement of being drawn out. Here Moses stands between the LORD’s charge and the people’s shared action, carrying that instruction to them.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This is the verb behind the name’s sense of being drawn out.
meshitihu: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form in Exodus 2:10 gives the name its stated connection to being drawn out of the waters.
THE PATTERN
A received word becomes visible when it takes shape in enacted life.
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.Draw near, and hear all that the LORD our God will say, and speak to us all that the LORD our God will speak to you. We will hear and respond, and we will do it.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.Both verses repeat the Hebrew root עשה (asah, “do” or “make”) around the command. Genesis gives the pattern through one person; Exodus gives it a collective shape in the people’s shared action.
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