What Does Exodus 14:22 Mean?
And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.
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 the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.THE KEY
The water that could bar passage becomes the wall around it, while a dry way runs through its center.
THE MEANING
Your image is not a vanished sea but an open route through the sea: dry ground holds beneath your feet, and water stands on both sides. What surrounds you can remain present while a traversable way is open within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A way forward cannot exist until every surrounding obstacle disappears.
THE ROOT
בַּיַּבָּשָׁה
bayyabbāšāh
GROWS FROM
יבש
Be dry, become dry, wither.
The Hebrew word for dry ground grows from the same root that names drying and withering. The path is marked by the ground’s uncovered, walkable state, held open in the middle of the waters.
ALSO GROWS
yāvēš: Be dry; become dry; wither.
יָבֵשׁ
This branch names the dry condition behind the ground underfoot, making its walkable state part of the verse’s central image.
hôvîš: Make dry; dry up.
הוֹבִישׁ
This causative branch names the making-dry action that opens a passage through what water covers.
THE PATTERN
When waters seem to cover every route, dry ground appears as a passage within or beyond them.
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.Thus says the LORD, who sets a way in the sea, and a trodden path in the strong waters.By trust they stepped across the Red Sea as over dry land, which the Egyptians, making the attempt, were swallowed down.THE THREAD
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.Genesis and Exodus use the same Hebrew word, יַבָּשָׁה (yabbāšāh), for dry land. Genesis shows it appearing as the waters gather; here that same ground is present within the sea, held between walls of water.
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