What Does Exodus 18:10 Mean?
And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who has snatched you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who has snatched the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
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 Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “delivered” pictures someone being pulled free from the hand that holds them.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s deliverance reaches you where an oppressive grasp closes around life, bringing you out from under its hand. The verse speaks of that release as something that can reach a whole people, not only one person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever has held you has the final claim over you.
THE ROOT
הִצִּיל
hitzil
GROWS FROM
נצל
To snatch away, rescue, or remove from a holder.
“snatched you out of” in this verse is hitzil. This root spans rescue and stripping away: both meanings involve removal from a holder. The repeated “hand” makes that image concrete here, the people are no longer under the captor’s grasp.
ALSO GROWS
hitzil: He rescued or delivered.
הִצִּיל
This is the verb used in the verse; it frames deliverance as being pulled away from the power that holds you.
venitzaltem: You will spoil or strip away (Exodus 3:22, KJV).
וְנִצַּלְתֶּם
The same root can describe what is taken out of someone’s possession, echoing the movement away from a holder.
בָּרוּךְ
barukh
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root also carries the image of bending the knee.
“Blessed be” in this verse is barukh. The word for blessing shares its root with “knee,” bringing a posture of recognition into the language of praise. Here, the blessing names the one whose action breaks the captor’s hold.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
This branch makes the bodily image within the root visible: blessing is linked with a bent knee.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This related form names the act of blessing that opens the verse.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance breaks the hold of an oppressive power and brings a life out from under it.
And I have come down to snatch them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and wide land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.He snatches me from my strong enemy and from my haters, for they are too firm for me.Who has brought us out of the authority of darkness and has moved us into the governance of the Son of his love.THE THREAD
And I have come down to snatch them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and wide land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The same Hebrew root for “deliver” appears beside the same phrase, “out of the hand of the Egyptians.” The promise adds movement into a good, spacious land, letting rescue hold both release from a grasp and room to live.
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