What Does Exodus 13:8 Mean?
And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, Because of this, the LORD did for me when I came out 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 thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the LORD did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.THE KEY
The telling makes your emergence from constriction present to the next generation.
THE MEANING
This verse places you inside a story of release: the LORD’s work in bringing you through constriction becomes visible in what you say. Your words carry that emergence forward, so it can become part of another person’s horizon.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that deliverance is a private escape whose meaning ends when you leave; here, release continues as testimony received by another.
THE ROOT
וְהִגַּדְתָּ
wehiggadta
GROWS FROM
נ־ג־ד
To stand in front or be prominent; in the causative, to make known.
“tell” in this verse is wehiggadta. The root family links telling with what stands in front: your words place the LORD’s work before another person. The telling is more than a report; it makes the release visible to the one who receives it.
ALSO GROWS
nagid: Leader or prince; one who stands at the front.
נָגִיד
The shared root gives telling a sense of bringing something forward into view.
neged: Before, in front of, or opposite.
נֶגֶד
This branch echoes how the story is set before your son, where he can see and receive it.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
To bind in, press in, or constrict.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. The name carries the narrowing image of tzar, with the -ayim ending giving it the shape of “two narrows.” The verse’s “came forth” names movement out of constriction and toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, constricted; also distress or an oppressor.
צַר
It brings the image of tightness into the name of the place the speaker leaves.
metzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
This branch makes the constriction concrete: a way out is movement from a narrow passage.
Mitzrayim: Egypt; here, the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
The name frames the departure as an emergence from doubled constriction.
בְּצֵאתִי
betseti
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
To go out, emerge, or come forth.
“came forth” in this verse is betseti. The verb names an exit and an emergence, holding deliverance as passage out of a narrowed place. Because the line says “unto me,” this movement remains lived testimony rather than an abstract lesson.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi'ah: Going out or departure.
יְצִיאָה
It names the act of leaving that the speaker carries into the telling.
motsa: An outlet, source, or place of origin.
מוֹצָא
This branch evokes the opening through which a person comes out and begins again.
THE PATTERN
Release becomes a living witness when it is spoken and carried forward.
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.THE THREAD
And it shall be when your son asks you in time to come, saying, What is this? Then you shall say to him, By a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.“Brought us out” comes from the same יצא (yatsa, to go out or emerge) root as “came forth” here. The child’s question receives the release as a shared story: the parent says “us,” and the emergence belongs to both.
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