What Does Exodus 15:2 Mean?
The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance. This is my God, and I will make him a dwelling; my father's God, and I will lift him high.
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 is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.THE KEY
Deliverance here takes the shape of a person: the LORD himself becomes the speaker’s way out of constriction.
THE MEANING
The LORD is your strength and song now; he becomes your deliverance, carrying you out of what constricts you. He is your God and the God of your father; you give him a dwelling and lift him high.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that rescue depends on your own strength: the verse locates both strength and deliverance in the LORD.
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּעָה
yeshuah
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, rescue, bring to safety; the movement out of constriction toward spaciousness.
This word names a movement: being brought out into safety and room to live. The verse says the LORD becomes this deliverance to me, so rescue is encountered as his presence.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: Deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
The verb names the act carried in the noun yeshuah: the LORD brings the speaker out.
Yeshua: Deliverance; the name carries the sense Yah delivers
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name and the verse’s word for deliverance share the same root, joining rescue with a person.
עָזִּי
ʿozzi
GROWS FROM
עזז
ʿ-z-z
Be strong, prevail.
This root names both strength and a refuge or stronghold: its force includes being a place where one can stand secure. Because the verse names Yah as strength, the root’s refuge-image gives that strength the feel of secure ground.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoz: Strength, might
עֹז
This is the noun at the heart of the speaker’s confession that Yah is strength.
maʿoz: Stronghold, refuge
מָעוֹז
This branch shows strength as a place of safety, deepening what it means for the LORD to be the speaker’s strength.
וְאַנְוֵהוּ
ve’anvehu
GROWS FROM
נוה
n-w-h
Dwell, settle, establish a dwelling.
“make him a dwelling” in this verse is ve’anvehu. The response to deliverance is framed as making a dwelling for God: the Hebrew carries both the act of settling and the place one settles. The root keeps the relation of abiding and making a home in view.
ALSO GROWS
navah: Dwell, settle
נָוָה
This verb shares the root’s sense of coming to rest in a place.
naveh: Dwelling, home, pasture
נָוֶה
This noun makes the verse’s habitation language concrete as a place of dwelling.
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, recognition of God as deliverance rises into song.
The LORD is my strength and song, and becomes my deliverance.Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; aligned and true are your ways, King of the nations.THE THREAD
Look, God is my deliverance. I will lean my full weight and not tremble, for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song, and he has become my deliverance.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root ישע (yashaʿ, deliver or rescue) behind יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah, deliverance) and repeats the pairing of the LORD with strength and song. It adds trust and fearlessness, showing what this deliverance opens in the reader now.
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