What Does Exodus 2:7 Mean?
Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call for you a nursing woman from the Hebrew women, to suckle the child for you?
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 said his sister to Pharaoh’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?THE KEY
Hebrew folds caregiver and nourishment into one root: the same word names the nurse and the suckling that keeps the child alive.
THE MEANING
A vulnerable life is sustained when someone notices what care is needed and asks for a way to provide it. The question opens a path for the child to receive nourishment from a Hebrew woman, even inside Pharaoh’s household.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the powerful always control every life is unsettled: the sister’s quiet question steers the palace toward the care the child needs.
THE ROOT
מֵינֶקֶת
mēneqet
GROWS FROM
ינק
Suckle; draw nourishment by nursing.
“nursing woman” in this verse is mēneqet. The woman called a “nurse” and the act “nurse” come from one root, ינק (yanaq, “to suckle”), joining the caregiver with the nourishment she gives. The same root can name both a suckling and a young shoot, linking receiving nourishment with the growth it makes possible.
ALSO GROWS
yānaq: To suckle or draw milk.
יָנַק
This is the root action beneath both the woman’s role and the child’s nursing.
yōnēq: A suckling; a young shoot.
יוֹנֵק
The image of a shoot extends nursing into growth: life draws nourishment and then rises.
THE PATTERN
A vulnerable life is sustained through care that keeps it held and nourished.
Yet you are the one who draws me out of the belly; you make me lean upon my mother's breasts.Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she would not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even they may forget, but I will not forget you.But we became gentle in your midst, as a nurse warms her own children.THE THREAD
For he shall come up like a nursling shoot before him, and like a root out of parched land. He has no outline and no adornment. When we see him, there is no sight that we should desire him.“Tender plant” translates יוֹנֵק (yōnēq, “young shoot”), from the same root ינק (yanaq, “suckle”) that names the nurse and nursing here. The shared root ties the child’s nourishment to the shoot’s growth: what receives life can rise from it.
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