What Does Exodus 21:3 Mean?
If he comes in with only his body, he goes out with only his body; if he is married, then his wife goes out with him.
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
If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.THE KEY
The verb יֵצֵא (yetse, he goes out) is answered by וְיָצְאָה (veyats’ah, and she goes out), making release a shared passage when marriage is present.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now in the concrete terms of release: the servant who arrives alone leaves alone; if he is a husband, his wife goes out with him. Her departure has its own verb and remains joined to his by “with him.” Release here accounts for a relationship as well as an individual status.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person’s release concerns only that person: when the verse names a marriage, it names the wife as leaving with him.
THE ROOT
יֵצֵא
yetse
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
yatsa
To go out, emerge, or come forth.
English makes “go out” sound like repeated phrasing, but Hebrew uses forms of יָצָא (yatsa, go out) for both people: יֵצֵא (yetse, he goes out) and וְיָצְאָה (veyats’ah, and she goes out). The feminine verb gives the wife her own departure, while עִמּוֹ (immo, with him) binds their exits into a shared passage.
ALSO GROWS
hotsi: Bring out; lead out.
הוֹצִיא
This causative form shows that the same root can name an exit someone brings about, deepening the verse’s picture of release as a passage made possible.
motsa: Going out; source or origin.
מוֹצָא
A source is where something comes forth; here, what emerges from the exit includes the relationship named alongside the servant.
בַּעַל אִשָּׁה
ba'al ishah
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ל
ba'al
To own or rule; to be a master. The noun also means husband.
English “married” hides that the Hebrew phrase is בַּעַל אִשָּׁה (ba’al ishah, husband of a woman). בעל also carries the meanings master and owner, giving the marital status a shade of authority, while the next clause explicitly gives the wife a verb of her own: she goes out.
ALSO GROWS
ba'al ha-bayit: Master or owner of the house; householder.
בַּעַל הַבַּיִת
This phrase preserves the root’s sense of mastery and ownership, a shade also present in the word used here for husband.
be'alim: Owners or masters.
בְּעָלִים
This plural form makes the root’s authority-bearing sense explicit and illuminates the status encoded by בַּעַל אִשָּׁה.
THE PATTERN
Scripture can portray departure as a shared passage, explicitly naming the household or people who go out together.
Go out from the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.And it came to be at the end of four hundred and thirty years, and on this very bone of the day it came to be, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.And they said, Lean your weight on the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, and you will be delivered, you and your house.THE THREAD
Go out from the ark, you, and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you.The command צֵא (tse, go out) comes from יצא (yatsa, go out), the same root at the center of Exodus 21:3. Genesis names the wife and family in the shared exit; Exodus likewise gives the wife her own departure, joined to her husband’s.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us