What Does Exodus 23:27 Mean?
I will send my terror before you, and I will put to death all the people among whom you come, and I will give all your enemies their backs to 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
I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.THE KEY
The first force to meet the enemy is terror, sent ahead of your arrival.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks in a sequence of force: terror goes ahead of you, the people you encounter are destroyed, and your enemies turn away. Fear comes before arrival; destruction and retreat follow. The verse holds that violence plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that opposition can shift only through direct confrontation: here terror precedes arrival, and enemies turn away.
THE ROOT
אֲשַׁלַּח
ʾăšallaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, let go.
“send” in this verse is ʾăšallaḥ. The fear is sent ahead as a force that reaches the enemy before you do. The same root carries the sense of extending provision outward: shulchan, a table, and Shiloach, the sent waters associated with restored sight.
ALSO GROWS
shulchan: Table; provision extended outward.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table carries the root’s sense of what is sent or extended; here, terror is what goes out ahead.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The sent waters restore sight; in this verse, what is sent ahead is terror that shapes the encounter.
וְהַמֹּתִי
wəhammōtî
GROWS FROM
הָמַם
Confuse, panic, or discomfit; throw into turmoil.
“put to death” in this verse is wəhammōtî. The Hebrew root shows confusion and panic as part of how the people are overcome, while the verse still names their destruction plainly. Exodus 14:24 uses the same verb for the LORD troubling the Egyptian host, making this disorienting force visible.
ALSO GROWS
mehumah: Confusion, tumult, panic.
מְהוּמָה
This noun shows the turmoil contained in the root behind the verse’s word “destroy.”
vayyāhom: He troubled or threw into confusion.
וַיָּהָם
This form appears in Exodus 14:24, where the Egyptian host is discomfited.
THE PATTERN
Terror sent ahead disorients opposition before the encounter, and defeat or retreat follows.
And it was, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the camp of the Egyptians in the pillar of fire and of cloud, and threw the camp into uproar.But the LORD your God will give them to you, and will throw them into a great uproar until they are wiped out.And the LORD set them tumbling before Israel, and struck them down at Gibeon with a great blow, and pursued them along the way that climbs to Beth-horon, and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah.THE THREAD
And it was, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the camp of the Egyptians in the pillar of fire and of cloud, and threw the camp into uproar.The verb translated “troubled” comes from הָמַם (hamam), the same root behind “destroy” in Exodus 23:27. The related scene shows confusion as part of the force that overcomes an enemy host.
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