What Does Exodus 14:14 Mean?
The LORD will fight for you, and you will hold your tongue.
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
The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.THE KEY
The LORD fights while you fall silent: the verse assigns the battle to one and the silence to the other.
THE MEANING
The LORD takes up the fight for you, and you are silent. That silence does not mean the threat is imaginary; the verse places it beside an active defense.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that silence in the face of danger means abandonment: the verse names the LORD as the one fighting for you.
THE ROOT
תַּחֲרִשׁוּן
tacharishun
GROWS FROM
חרשׁ
ḥ-r-sh
Be silent, keep quiet.
“hold your tongue” in this verse is tacharishun. “Hold your peace” can sound like an inward calm, but the Hebrew verb says to keep silent. Beside the LORD’s fighting, that silence marks a division of action: the fight is underway, and your voice does not have to produce the defense.
ALSO GROWS
cheresh: Deaf; one who does not hear.
חֵרֵשׁ
This related form connects silence with not hearing, giving the verse’s quiet a sense of withheld response rather than emotional calm.
tacharishun: You will keep silent.
תַּחֲרִשׁוּן
This is the form used in the verse: the people’s silence stands directly beside the LORD’s action.
יִלָּחֵם
yillachem
GROWS FROM
לחם
l-ḥ-m
Fight, contend in battle.
“fight” in this verse is yillachem. The Hebrew assigns the combat to the LORD; this is not merely a call to feel brave. The same root names war, so the promise keeps its force as a real struggle in which the LORD fights on your behalf.
ALSO GROWS
milchamah: War, battle.
מִלְחָמָה
This noun from the same root makes the conflict in the verse concrete: the LORD takes up the battle.
vayillachem: And he fought.
וַיִּלָּחֶם
The same verb appears when the text later says the LORD fought against the Egyptians, showing the promise becoming action.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD takes up a conflict, the threatened person is not left to secure deliverance through their own force or vengeance.
The LORD your God, who goes before you, will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes.You will not need to fight in this war. Take your stand, and see the deliverance of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem. Do not fear, nor be shattered. Tomorrow, go out against them, for the LORD will be with you.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
And he turned aside the wheels of their chariots, and they drove them heavily, and the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.The verb translated “fighteth” comes from the same root as “fight” in verse 14. The later verse gives the promise its concrete edge: the LORD’s fight is against the Egyptians, and the text does not soften that violence.
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