What Does Exodus 17:4 Mean?
And Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me.
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 Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me.THE KEY
The cry is not a victory shout: it is a direct appeal spoken while bodily violence is close.
THE MEANING
When conflict presses toward bodily harm around you, this verse holds a direct appeal to God beside a question with no ready answer. The danger stays visible inside the prayer: the people are almost ready to stone Moses.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that an honest appeal to God must arrive with a solution already in hand; the prayer itself is a question.
THE ROOT
וַיִּצְעַק
vayyits'aq he cried
GROWS FROM
צעק
To cry out or call aloud, often in distress.
“cried out” in this verse is vayyits'aq he cried. וַיִּצְעַק makes Moses’ words an outcry, not a composed report. This root also names the cry itself, so the distress becomes audible as an appeal before God.
ALSO GROWS
tse'aqah: Cry, outcry
צְעָקָה
In Exodus 3:9, this noun names Israel’s cry alongside its oppression, echoing the distress carried in Moses’ verb.
vayyits'aqu: They cried out
וַיִּצְעֲקוּ
Psalm 107:6 uses this plural verb for people crying to the LORD in their trouble, showing the same root as a voiced appeal.
THE PATTERN
Distress is given voice before God, and God hears it.
Then they cry out to the LORD in their narrowness, and he snatches them out of their narrow places.I have seen, I have seen the harm done to my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to bring them out. Come now, and I will send you into Egypt.THE THREAD
Now therefore, look, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the pressing with which the Egyptians press upon them.The Hebrew צַעֲקָה (tsa’aqah, outcry) shares the צעק seed with וַיִּצְעַק (vayyits’aq, he cried out). Here the cry and oppression appear together, opening Moses’ cry as distress made audible before God.
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