What Does Exodus 9:2 Mean?
For if you refuse to let them go, and still grip them.
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
For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still,THE KEY
Release and restraint are opposite acts here: the people remain captive because someone keeps holding on.
THE MEANING
This verse names a living pattern: refusing release means actively continuing the grip. The people remain caught in another’s power, and that continuing hold is what the verse confronts.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that withholding is neutral or passive; continuing to hold people is itself a choice.
THE ROOT
לְשַׁלֵּחַ
leshalleach
GROWS FROM
שׁלח
š-l-ḥ
Send out; release or let go.
“let them go” in this verse is leshalleach. This verb holds sending and releasing together: the people are to be sent out from the grip that confines them. The line makes release a movement out of constriction, not merely a change in how captivity feels.
ALSO GROWS
shillēaḥ: Sent away; released.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This verb form shows the same root’s force as an act that sends someone out of another’s hold.
shālûaḥ: Sent; dispatched.
שָׁלוּחַ
The sent one has been moved outward, echoing the release demanded for the people.
mishlōaḥ: Sending; dispatch.
מִשְׁלוֹחַ
This noun keeps the root’s outward movement visible: release is a sending forth.
מַחֲזִיק בָּם
maḥazīq bam
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
Be strong, make firm; in this form, hold fast.
“still grip them” in this verse is maḥazīq bam. The Hebrew describes an ongoing hold, not a passive failure to act. Beside שׁלח (š-l-ḥ, send out and release), it sets maintained grip against release: the confinement continues because the holding continues.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: Be strong; grow firm; strengthen.
חָזַק
The root’s force of firmness clarifies that this hold is maintained, not accidental.
ḥizzēq: Strengthen; make firm.
חִזֵּק
This related form makes the active force of keeping something firm explicit.
maḥazīq: Holding fast; grasping.
מַחֲזִיק
This is the form used in the verse, naming the continuing grip directly.
THE PATTERN
Freedom is obstructed wherever a hand keeps its grip after release has been demanded.
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.Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh, and said to him, Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews. How long will you refuse to bend low before me? Let my people go, so that they may serve me.The same שׁלח (š-l-ḥ, send out and release) verb returns in the demand, paired again with refusal. Its repetition makes the ongoing grip visible as a continuing choice.
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