What Does Exodus 15:27 Mean?
And they came to Elim, and there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees; and they pitched camp there by the 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
And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “wells” also means “eyes”: each spring is an opening in the land through which hidden water appears.
THE MEANING
This verse holds abundance in a concrete form: twelve springs, seventy palms, and a place to camp beside the waters. It gives the reader a picture of relief that lasts long enough to become a place to settle, not only a momentary drink.
THE ROOT
עֵינֹת
ʿênōṯ
GROWS FROM
ע־י־ן
ʿ-y-n
Eye; spring or fountain. The singular noun עַיִן (ʿayin) carries both meanings.
“springs of water” in this verse is ʿênōṯ. English presents these as wells, while Hebrew uses a word that also means eyes. A spring is an opening in the land, where water that was hidden comes into view.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; spring or fountain
עַיִן
The same noun holds both meanings, joining the eye’s opening with the place water emerges.
ʿênōṯ: Springs or fountains
עֵינֹת
This plural form names the twelve water sources at Elim.
maʿyan: Spring or fountain
מַעְיָן
This related word preserves the spring or source sense, keeping the root’s connection to an opening where water flows visible.
THE PATTERN
Life-giving water turns exposed places into places of rest and ongoing care.
He lays me down in green pastures; he leads me beside resting waters.The beasts of the field will give me weight, the jackals and the ostriches, for I have set waters in the wilderness and rivers in the parched land, to water my people, my chosen.For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shepherds them, and guides them along the way to springs of living waters, and God wipes away every tear from their eyes.THE THREAD
And the messenger of the LORD found her by the eye of the waters in the wilderness, by that eye on the road to Shur.Genesis uses עַיִן (ʿayin, “eye; spring or fountain”) for the wilderness fountain, the same word family behind Exodus’s עֵינֹת (ʿênōṯ, “springs”). In both verses, a spring opens in the wilderness; here, twelve such openings and the surrounding palms make the source a place to remain.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us