What Does Exodus 15:3 Mean?

The LORD is a man of battle; the LORD is his name.

Exodus 15:3 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

THE KEY

The LORD’s name is revealed through action: the one who releases the constrained is a fighter.

THE MEANING

The LORD stands as one who confronts what confines and holds people in bondage. Here, the name is joined to action: the LORD fights.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that the LORD’s nature is only passive gentleness; the verse names conflict as part of that nature.

THE ROOT

מִלְחָמָה

milḥāmāh

GROWS FROM

לחם

to fight, engage in battle

“battle” in this verse is milḥāmāh. The word for war grows from a root of fighting, so the verse presents conflict as active engagement, not a distant condition. Beside “the LORD is his name,” that action reveals the nature named.

ALSO GROWS

lāḥam: to fight, wage battle

לָחַם

The verb makes explicit the action contained in the noun “war.”

loḥem: fighter, warrior

לוֹחֵם

This branch names the one who acts, echoing the verse’s image of the LORD as a warrior.

THE PATTERN

The LORD is portrayed as actively confronting what threatens or confines life.

The LORD will fight for you, and you will hold your tongue.

Exodus 14:14 · SDVThe LORD’s fighting is the action behind the warrior nature named in Exodus 15:3.

The LORD goes out like a mighty man. He stirs up his zeal like a man of war. He shouts, yes, he roars. He grows strong over his enemies.

Isaiah 42:13 · SDVThe LORD is again pictured as a warrior who confronts opposition and prevails.

And I see heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. The one who sits on it is called Steady and True, and in alignment he judges and wages war.

Revelation 19:11 · SDVThe vision presents judgment and warfare as active confrontation by the one called Faithful and True.

THE THREAD

The LORD will fight for you, and you will hold your tongue.

Exodus 14:14 · SDV

“Fight” here comes from the same Hebrew root, ⁨לחם⁩, as “war” in Exodus 15:3. The noun names the nature; this verse shows that nature in action.

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