What Does Exodus 14:21 Mean?
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong breath of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.
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 stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.THE KEY
Moses, the one named “drawn out”, stands over the sea while ruach, the word for both wind and breath, opens a way through it.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where the way appears closed: what surrounds you is driven back, divided, and made passable, with the opening held through the whole night. Moses, whose name carries the sense “drawn out,” stands over the water as ruach moves through it. The passage opens by a parting, not by making the sea disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A barrier must vanish completely before a way through can exist.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Moving air; breath, including wind.
“breath of the east” in this verse is ruach. The word translated “wind” is ruach, the same Hebrew word used for breath. English separates the movement of air outside the body from breath within it, while Hebrew holds both meanings in one word.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind; moving air.
רוּחַ
This is the word used in the verse: ruach moves across the sea through the night.
ruach: Breath.
רוּחַ
The same word gives the wind its connection to breath, rather than treating them as unrelated forces.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out, especially from water.
Moses’s name carries the sense “drawn out,” as Exodus 2:10 explains it through the act of drawing him out of water. Here the one whose name bears that nature stretches his hand over the water as a way opens through it.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verbal root behind the name Moshe and its association with being drawn from water.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
Exodus 2:10 uses this form to explain Moshe’s name, making “drawn out” part of his identity.
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
vayibaqqu
GROWS FROM
בקע
b-q-ʿ
To cleave, split open.
“were split” in this verse is vayibaqqu. The waters do not simply disappear: the verb says they split open. Its root also names an opened expanse, so the division itself is what makes a passage possible.
ALSO GROWS
baqaʿ: To split or cleave open.
בָּקַע
This is the root verb behind the waters being divided in the verse.
biqʿah: A valley or open plain.
בִּקְעָה
The related word names an opened space, echoing how a split in the waters creates room for passage.
THE PATTERN
A way through appears when waters are gathered or divided and dry ground is exposed.
And God said, "Let the waters beneath the heavens be pooled into one place, and let the dry land be seen." And it was so.Your way is in the sea, and your trail in the many waters, and your footprints are not perceived.By trust they stepped across the Red Sea as over dry land, which the Egyptians, making the attempt, were swallowed down.THE THREAD
That led them by the right hand of Moses with his arm of adornment, splitting the waters before them, to make for himself a name for the ages?Isaiah uses the same root, בקע (baqaʿ, split open), for the water divided before them. The shared root links the opening of the sea with the act of being led: the path appears as the waters are split ahead.
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