What Does Exodus 13:3 Mean?
And Moses said to the people, Remember this day, when you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by a strong hand the LORD brought you out from this place. No risen bread shall be eaten.
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 unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses one root for both “you came out” and “the LORD brought you out,” so the exit from constriction is both your movement and God’s act.
THE MEANING
Remembering keeps the release present: you come out of the house of servitude, and the LORD brings you out with a strong hand. The movement is at once human departure and divine action; even the bread marks the day in the body. Moses’s name carries the shape of being drawn out, echoing the people’s passage from constriction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your movement and divine action are mutually exclusive dissolves here: one root names both your coming out and the LORD bringing you out.
THE ROOT
יְצָאתֶם
yĕṣāʾtem
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ṣ-ʾ
Go out, emerge, exit; in the causative form, bring out.
“came out / brought you out” in this verse is yĕṣāʾtem. The verse uses the same root for the people’s going out and the LORD’s bringing them out. One movement has two grammatical voices: departure and being brought forth.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣāʾ: Go out, emerge, exit
יָצָא
This is the root behind “ye came out,” naming the people’s departure.
hōṣîʾ: Bring out, cause to exit
הוֹצִיא
This causative form names what the LORD does, joining divine action to the people’s exit.
yĕṣîʾāh: Exit, departure
יְצִיאָה
This noun form makes the shared movement visible as a named departure.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
m-ṣ-r
Narrowness; a strait or constricted place.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. The name carries more than a place: its form evokes constriction, with the dual ending -ַיִם (-ayim, “two”) heard as “two narrows.” The departure from Mitzrayim is also an exit from narrowed space.
ALSO GROWS
mēṣar: A narrow place, strait
מֵצַר
This is the constriction carried in Mitzrayim’s name and echoed in the Psalm’s word for distress.
Mitzrayim: Egypt; heard as “the two narrows”
מִצְרַיִם
The dual ending lets the name hold doubled constriction, sharpening what “came out” means in the verse.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōšeh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-š-h
Draw out, pull from water.
Exodus 2:10 links Moses’s name to being drawn out of water. The one speaking about a people being brought out carries that same movement in his name.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: Draw out, pull from water
מָשָׁה
Exodus 2:10 uses this verb when Pharaoh’s daughter explains that she drew the child from the water.
Mōšeh: Moses; the one drawn out
מֹשֶׁה
The speaker’s name echoes the passage’s movement from a place of constriction into release.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures liberation as movement out of constriction and bondage into freedom and room.
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The Psalm’s “distress” is מֵצַר (mēṣar, “narrow place”), echoing מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, “Egypt; the two narrows”). The Psalm makes Exodus 13:3’s movement immediate: the constricted place opens into a large place.
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