What Does Exodus 13:4 Mean?

This day you go out in the month Abib.

Exodus 13:4 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

This day came ye out in the month Abib.

THE KEY

Your going out is dated to ⁨אָבִיב⁩ (aviv, fresh ears of grain) and to ⁨חֹדֶשׁ⁩ (chodesh, month), a word rooted in renewal.

THE MEANING

Your going out meets the first fresh growth of the year. Leaving and renewal share the same moment.

THE ROOT

חֹדֶשׁ

chodesh

GROWS FROM

חדש

Be new; renew.

The Hebrew word for month also names the new moon and shares its root with words for newness and renewal. The going out falls in ⁨אָבִיב⁩ (aviv, fresh ears of grain), so the date itself carries the image of new growth.

ALSO GROWS

chadash: New.

חָדָשׁ

This adjective shares the root of chodesh, placing newness inside the word for the month.

chiddesh: Renew; restore.

חִדֵּשׁ

This verb shows the same root in action: what is new can also be renewed.

יֹצְאִים

yotze'im

GROWS FROM

יצא

Go out; emerge; depart.

“you go out” in this verse is yotze'im. The going out here shares its root with the LORD’s bringing the people out in the preceding verse. The root holds both the release that carries someone out and the emergence of those who go.

ALSO GROWS

vayyotsi'akhem: He brought you out.

וַיּוֹצִאֵכֶם

This form appears in Exodus 13:3, linking the LORD’s bringing out with the people’s going out in this verse.

motsa: A going forth; an outlet or source.

מוֹצָא

The same root can name where something issues forth, giving the act of going out a sense of emergence into what follows.

THE PATTERN

Release opens onto renewal that appears as fresh growth, a new song, and new creation.

They are new every morning; great is your steadiness.

Lamentations 3:23 · SDVRenewal appears again each morning, making newness a recurring part of life.

He sets a new song in my mouth, praise to our God. Many see and stand in awe, and lean their weight upon the LORD.

Psalm 40:3 · SDVNewness takes the form of a song that others can hear and see.

So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.

2 Corinthians 5:17 · SDVThe passing away of the old is joined to the appearance of new creation.

THE THREAD

This month will be the head of months for you; it will be first of the months of the year.

Exodus 12:2 · SDV

Both verses use ⁨חֹדֶשׁ⁩ (chodesh, month), rooted in ⁨חדש⁩ (chadash, be new or renew). Exodus 12:2 names the month as a beginning; Exodus 13:4 identifies it as Abib and dates the going out there.

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