What Does Exodus 2:16 Mean?
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.
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
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.THE KEY
Provision moves from source to reach: water is drawn up, gathered into troughs, and made available to the flock.
THE MEANING
Provision takes shape through a chain: the daughters draw water, fill the troughs, and ready the flock’s drink. The verse keeps each movement visible, from water brought up to life sustained.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that provision arrives fully formed: here, the flock can drink because someone draws and gathers the water.
THE ROOT
וַתִּדְלֶנָה
vatidlenah
GROWS FROM
דלה
Draw up, especially water.
“drew water” in this verse is vatidlenah. English gives the action as simply “drew,” while the root carries the sense of lifting water up from depth. The same root returns in Exodus 2:19 when Moses draws water, linking this ordinary work to the help the daughters recognize.
ALSO GROWS
dalah: Draw water up.
דָּלָה
This is the same root in a simple verb form, making the drawing itself the passage’s central movement.
deli: Bucket or pail.
דְּלִי
The bucket is a tool for lifting water, a concrete branch of the same drawing action.
וַתְּמַלֶּאנָה
vatemallena
GROWS FROM
מלא
Be full; fill.
“filled” in this verse is vatemallena. The root holds both becoming full and filling something. The troughs are not incidental containers: they turn drawn water into a supply the flock can reach.
ALSO GROWS
male: Be full.
מָלֵא
This form names the state the troughs reach when the daughters finish their work.
melo: Fullness or full measure.
מְלֹא
This noun from the same root widens “filled” into the idea of fullness gathered in one place.
לְהַשְׁקוֹת
lehashqot
GROWS FROM
שקה
Give drink; water or cause to drink.
The phrase points toward the flock as the one receiving drink, completing the movement from drawing to filling to drinking. English “water” can sound like a task; this root makes the intended life-giving result explicit.
ALSO GROWS
shaqah: Give drink or cause to drink.
שָׁקָה
This verb names the result the filled troughs make possible for the flock.
mashqeh: Drink or beverage; also a cupbearer.
מַשְׁקֶה
This noun from the same root connects the act of giving drink with what is given.
THE PATTERN
Water becomes provision as it is drawn from a source and brought within reach of life.
And when she had finished giving him drink, she said, I will draw waters for your camels also, until they have finished drinking.But whoever drinks of the water I give never thirsts into the ages; the water I give becomes in him a spring of water leaping up into the life of the ages.THE THREAD
And they said, An Egyptian snatched us from the hand of the shepherds, and also drew, and drew water for us, and watered the flock.The same Hebrew root for drawing water returns when Moses supplies the women and their flock. They describe his help as deliverance and immediately name the drawing of water, joining the root’s everyday work to the rescue they experience.
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