What Does Exodus 20:2 Mean?
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
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
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.THE KEY
Before a command is spoken, the divine name is disclosed through its nature: the one who brings you out of the narrow house.
THE MEANING
The voice meets you now as the one who brings you out of the house where service has become bondage. Release comes first: you are addressed as someone brought out before the commands that follow are spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you must obey first to become eligible for release is undone: here the voice names your release before the commands that follow.
THE ROOT
הוֹצֵאתִיךָ
hotsetikha
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
y-ts-ʾ
go out, emerge, come forth
“brought you out” in this verse is hotsetikha. The Hebrew form means “I caused you to go out,” placing the movement in the speaker’s act. This root also names an outlet or departure, so being brought out is a passage beyond confinement.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi’ah: going out, departure
יְצִיאָה
It makes the movement in “brought out” visible as a crossing out of the place that held you.
motsa: outlet, point of departure, source
מוֹצָא
It gives the root a concrete opening: release is a way out, not only a change in status.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ts-r-r
press in, constrict, bind
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim echoes the tsar/metzar word family of narrowness, carrying the sense of a constricting place into this verse. “Brought out” then names movement from constriction toward space.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, tight
צַר
Its sound and sense make the narrowness of the place part of the verse’s movement out.
metzar: narrow place, strait
מֵצַר
It gives constriction a place-shaped form, clarifying what the act of bringing out opens beyond.
בֵּית עֲבָדִים
beit avadim
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ד
ʿ-b-d
serve, work, labor
“house of bondage” in this verse is beit avadim. The Hebrew phrase is a “house of servants”; the surrounding words make their service bondage. The root names service itself, so the verse distinguishes the act of serving from the coercion that turns service into captivity.
ALSO GROWS
eved: servant, one who serves
עֶבֶד
It is the singular form behind the “servants” in the phrase, making service visible beneath “bondage.”
avodah: work, labor, service
עֲבוֹדָה
It shows the same root can name work and service broadly, while the verse’s “house” marks the oppressive condition.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance carries a person out of the power that confines them and into a new domain.
He brings them out of darkness and the valley of deepest darkness, and tears their bonds apart.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 the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root for human work in Eden, translated “dress” here. The root names service, while this verse shows how service can become bondage when it is forced.
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