What Does Exodus 3:10 Mean?
Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
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
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.THE KEY
The root that sends Moses is also the root of Pharaoh’s command to release the people: the commission already contains its outcome.
THE MEANING
You are sent toward the place that constricts, carrying a movement that brings people out. Even while they are held there, they are named as God’s people; captivity does not rename them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the captor has final claim over the captive is undone: the people are named as God’s before they leave.
THE ROOT
אֶשְׁלָחֲךָ
’eshlaḥakha
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
send forth, release, let go
“send” in this verse is ’eshlaḥakha. The root that sends Moses also appears in the command to Pharaoh to release the people. Sending the messenger and letting the captives go belong to one movement: release enters the place that is holding them.
ALSO GROWS
shillaḥ: send away, release
שִׁלַּח
This is the form behind “Let my people go” in Exodus 5:1, where the sending root becomes a demand for release.
shilluach: sending away, dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes the root’s releasing sense explicit: what is held is sent away.
הוֹצֵא
hotse
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
go out, emerge
“bring” in this verse is hotse. The Hebrew keeps the people’s own movement at the center: Moses is to cause them to go out. Deliverance is an actual exit from the place holding them, not only a change in who rules them.
ALSO GROWS
yotse: one who goes out, one emerging
יוֹצֵא
The branch keeps the people as the ones moving out, rather than treating them as objects merely relocated.
yetzi’ah: going out, exit
יְצִיאָה
This names the passage the verse opens: an emergence from confinement.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
press, bind, constrict
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries צַר (tsar, narrow) with the dual ending -ayim: the two narrows. The destination itself bears the image of constriction, so bringing the people out is movement from narrowness toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, tight
צַר
This branch gives the constricting sense that the name Mitzrayim carries in the verse’s movement out.
tsarah: distress, trouble
צָרָה
Distress shares the language of tightness, illuminating Egypt as more than a place name: it is the narrow condition the people are leaving.
THE PATTERN
Release takes the form of a sending into captivity, followed by an actual passage out.
The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.He brings them out of darkness and the valley of deepest darkness, and tears their bonds apart.So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.“Let my people go” uses שלח (shalach, “send away, release”), the same root as “I will send you.” Moses is sent with the very word that asks Pharaoh to release the people: the sending and the letting go belong to one movement.
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