What Does Exodus 6:20 Mean?
And Amram took Jochebed, his father's sister, as a wife, and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the years of the life of Amram were one hundred thirty-seven years.
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 Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses: and the years of the life of Amram were an hundred and thirty and seven years.THE KEY
Moses’ name carries the motion of drawing out, so this family line already holds that movement inside it.
THE MEANING
This line names Amram’s marriage to his father’s sister alongside the births of Aaron and Moses, without smoothing the family’s texture. Moses’ name carries the sense of one who draws out, showing how a life can bear its nature before its work is visible.
THE ROOT
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
Draw out, pull out.
The root ties Moses’ name to the movement of drawing out. The naming scene in Exodus 2:10 makes that connection explicit: his name and the act of drawing him from the water share this seed.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: To draw out or pull out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb whose sound and letters are heard in Moses’ name.
mĕšîtihû: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form of the same root appears in Exodus 2:10, where the naming is explained.
יוֹכֶבֶד
Yocheved
GROWS FROM
כבד
Be heavy or weighty; by extension, carry weight or honor.
Jochebed’s name is commonly understood as “YHWH is weight” or “YHWH is glory,” carrying the root כבד inside the family line. The English name leaves that weight hidden beside Moses’ name, which carries the movement of drawing out.
ALSO GROWS
kāvēḏ: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This is the root’s concrete sense, giving the name its language of weight.
kāḇōḏ: Weight, honor, glory.
כָּבוֹד
This related form shows how physical weight extends into the idea of significance or honor.
kibbēḏ: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
This verb makes the root’s movement from weight to giving weight or honor visible.
וַתֵּלֶד
wattēleḏ
GROWS FROM
ילד
Bear, beget, bring forth.
The Hebrew verb translated “bare” shares its root with words for a child and for begetting. English separates the act and the people born into different word families, while Hebrew keeps them visibly connected.
ALSO GROWS
yeleḏ: Child.
יֶלֶד
The child and the act of bearing share the same root, linking what is brought forth to the verb that brings it forth.
hôlîḏ: Beget, father.
הוֹלִיד
This causative form extends the same root across the other side of parenthood.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s names can carry a nature or action that reveals something about the life attached to them.
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.No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.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.Exodus 2:10 links Moses’ name to the Hebrew root משה, “draw out,” in the phrase “I drew him out.” The family record therefore carries that root inside his name before the story shows the movement it names.
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