What Does Exodus 4:20 Mean?
And Moses took his wife and his sons, and mounted them on the donkey, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.
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
And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.THE KEY
The one drawn out returns to the two narrows carrying the rod that will open a way through them.
THE MEANING
Moses returns toward Egypt with his wife and sons beside him and the rod of God in his hand. The one named “drawn out” now carries the sign of God’s extending power into the place of constriction. Deliverance is moving into the narrow place, not remaining distant from it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that returning to a place of constriction means deliverance has failed dissolves here: Moses goes back carrying the rod of God.
THE ROOT
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
מ־ש־ה
m-sh-h
Draw out, pull from the water.
The verse’s naming story connects Moses to being drawn out of the water. Now the drawn-out one returns toward Egypt, carrying the work of deliverance into the place of constriction.
ALSO GROWS
māšâ: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb holds the action compressed into Moses’ name.
mĕšîtihû: “I drew him out,” as in Exodus 2:10.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
The phrase explains Moses’ name and connects his beginning to the return in this verse.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ṣ-r-r
To press in, bind, or confine; the root carries the sense of narrowness.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. The Hebrew name Mitzrayim is heard through מֵצַר (meitzar), a narrow place, with the ending -ayim carrying the image of a double narrowing. Moses returns to that constriction with the means of opening a way through it.
ALSO GROWS
ṣar: Narrow, distressing; also an adversary.
צַר
It gives the constricted place its sharp, pressing quality.
meitzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
It makes the place Moses returns to an image of constriction.
מַטֶּה
Matteh
GROWS FROM
נ־ט־ה
n-ṭ-h
To stretch out, extend, or incline.
The rod’s name is linked to extension: what is held in Moses’ hand will be stretched out in the story to open a passage. The same word can also mean a tribe, a branch extending from a larger whole.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭâ: To stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
This verb shows the extending action carried in the staff’s root.
maṭṭeh: A staff or rod; also a tribe.
מַטֶּה
The staff and the extending branch share one word, joining the sign in Moses’ hand to a people’s passage.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance enters the constricted place and opens a way through it.
And you, lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea, and split it, and let the children of Israel come on dry ground in the midst of the sea.When you cross through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not kindle upon you.This one brought them out, having made wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.THE THREAD
And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, the one drawn out, and she said, Because from the waters I drew him out.The naming phrase “I drew him out” uses מָשָׁה (māšâ), the root carried in Moses’ name. Here the one drawn out returns to Egypt with the rod in his hand, joining the story of his own drawing out to the passage he will open for others.
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