What Does Exodus 8:10 Mean?
And he said, Tomorrow. And he said, Let it be according to your word, so that you may perceive that there is none like the LORD our God.
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 he said, To morrow. And he said, Be it according to thy word: that thou mayest know that there is none like unto the LORD our God.THE KEY
Pharaoh names the time, and that very delay becomes the measure by which the LORD’s unmatched nature is made knowable.
THE MEANING
The frogs’ removal is set for tomorrow, at the time Pharaoh names; the delay becomes a precise point of recognition. The LORD’s uniqueness becomes knowable through what happens, not merely through a claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that naming the time means controlling the power: Pharaoh names when, but the act reveals the LORD.
THE ROOT
יָדַע
yādaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or become acquainted with.
“perceive” in this verse is yādaʿ. The verse’s purpose is not simply that Pharaoh receives information; he is to know through what happens. The Hebrew verb holds knowing and recognition together, so the event itself becomes the encounter that makes the LORD’s uniqueness apparent.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows the knowing the verse names as an outcome: recognition formed through the encounter.
hodiʿa: To inform or make something known.
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form links the sign to disclosure: what happens makes the LORD’s unmatched nature known.
דָּבָר
dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; דָּבָר means a word, matter, or thing.
The phrase “according to thy word” uses a Hebrew word that can also mean a matter or thing. Pharaoh’s spoken choice of timing is met in the coming event, joining what is said with what is about to happen.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: He spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form makes the spoken request in the verse audible within the same root.
dābār: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The shared form lets “word” carry the sense of a stated matter, the timing that Pharaoh names and the event that follows.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s unmatched nature becomes knowable through decisive acts and clear witness.
For at this time I will send all my blows upon your heart, and upon your servants, and upon your people, so that you may perceive that there is none like me in all the earth.To you it was shown, that you might perceive that the LORD is God, and there is no other beside him.So then, as touching the eating of what is slaughtered for idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.THE THREAD
For at this time I will send all my blows upon your heart, and upon your servants, and upon your people, so that you may perceive that there is none like me in all the earth.The same verb יָדַע (yādaʿ, know) returns with the phrase “that thou mayest know.” Exodus 9:14 widens the scope of this recognition: the LORD’s unmatched nature is declared “in all the earth.”
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