What Does Exodus 15:10 Mean?
You blew with your wind, and the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters.
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
Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters.THE KEY
The Hebrew רוּחַ (ruach) holds wind, breath, and spirit in one word, so the sea moves at the force of God’s own breath until the pursuers sink.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now in a stark image: God’s wind drives the sea over the pursuers, and they sink like lead in mighty waters. The sea that can open a way forward can also close over the force that denies that way. Deliverance here includes the end of the pursuit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a pursuing power is untouchable gives way: the force that presses forward can itself be overtaken and brought down.
THE ROOT
בְּרוּחֲךָ
bəruḥakha
GROWS FROM
רוח
Wind, breath, or spirit; the Hebrew word holds these senses together.
The verse uses רוּחַ (ruach) for wind, the same Hebrew word rendered as breath or spirit elsewhere. English separates those senses, while Hebrew lets the reader hear divine breath moving the sea.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind
רוּחַ
This is the sense used in the verse: the sea is moved by God’s רוח.
ruach: Breath
רוּחַ
The same Hebrew word lets the wind be heard as breath, the force moving through the scene.
ruach: Spirit
רוּחַ
The same word is also rendered spirit elsewhere, keeping divine presence and moving air within one lexical field.
כִּסָּמוֹ
kissāmō
GROWS FROM
כסה
To cover, conceal, or clothe.
The Hebrew verb makes the sea’s action a covering: it does not merely surround the pursuers, but closes over them. The root also names coverings and the state of being covered, giving the image both an action and its result.
ALSO GROWS
mikhseh: A covering or shelter
מִכְסֶה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of a covering, illuminating the sea’s role as what closes over the pursuers.
mekhusseh: Covered
מְכֻסֶּה
This form preserves the root consonants and names the resulting state: the pursuers are beneath what has covered them.
THE PATTERN
God’s command over wind and water changes the sea’s force, making it yield passage, settle, or overwhelm what pursues.
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to cross over the earth, and the waters settled.And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong wind of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.THE THREAD
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to cross over the earth, and the waters settled.Both verses use רוּחַ (ruach, wind/breath) for the force moving over the waters. In Exodus the waters cover the pursuers; in Genesis they recede, showing the same word at work as the sea rises and withdraws.
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