What Does Exodus 18:2 Mean?
Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her away.
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
Then Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back,THE KEY
The verse names Zipporah’s separation as a sending away, yet still calls her Moses’ wife: release has not erased the bond.
THE MEANING
The separation is real, and the relationship is still named: Jethro takes Zipporah after her sending away while she remains identified as Moses’ wife. Being sent away does not by itself erase belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that once someone is sent away, the bond no longer exists; the verse still names the bond after the separation.
THE ROOT
שִׁלּוּחֶיהָ
shillūḥehā
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
To send or send forth; here, a sending away.
“sent her away” in this verse is shillūḥehā. The Hebrew wording is literally “after her sending away,” carrying the root sense of an outward sending or release. The verse holds that release beside continued belonging, naming Zipporah as Moses’ wife when Jethro takes her.
ALSO GROWS
shālaḥ: To send outward or send forth.
שָׁלַח
This is the verb behind the phrase, so “sent her back” also carries the sense of a sending away.
shillūaḥ: An act of sending someone away.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This form names the separation as an event that happens before Jethro takes her.
חֹתֵן
ḥōtēn
GROWS FROM
חתן
ḥ-t-n
To become related through marriage.
“father in law” in this verse is ḥōtēn. The family title carries the marriage bond in its own root. Jethro’s relation to Moses is named through the same bond that identifies Zipporah as Moses’ wife, even after her sending away.
ALSO GROWS
ḥātān: A man joined to a family through marriage.
חָתָן
This form shows the root’s connection to the marriage bond that makes Jethro Moses’ father-in-law.
ḥōtēn: A wife’s father or a husband’s father-in-law.
חֹתֵן
Jethro’s title locates him within the marriage relation that remains named in the verse.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōsheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out, especially from water.
Moses’ name carries the sense of being drawn out. Beside the language of sending away, that name adds another movement of release to the verse’s picture without making the two actions identical.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To pull or draw something out, as from water.
מָשָׁה
This verb is the root linked to Moses’ name and gives the name its sense of being drawn out.
Mōsheh: Moses’ name, associated with being drawn out of the water.
מֹשֶׁה
The name places the idea of being drawn out alongside Zipporah’s sending away and renewed reception.
THE PATTERN
Separation need not be the final word when return is met with reception.
But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she turned back to him, into the ark, for the waters were upon the face of all the earth. Then he stretched out his hand, and took her, and brought her in to him, into the ark.And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never throw out.THE THREAD
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.“Sent” is שָׁלַח (shālaḥ, send or release), the same root carried by “her sending away.” Here the outward sending carries a healing word, showing that what follows the sending can change its meaning.
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