What Does Exodus 9:27 Mean?
And Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, I have missed the mark this time. The LORD is aligned, and I and my people are wicked.
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 Pharaoh sent, and called for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the LORD is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.THE KEY
Pharaoh sends for help, but the root of “sent” also carries “release”, and release itself remains unspoken.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where the truth becomes speakable: the LORD is righteous, and the speaker includes himself among the guilty. Naming a wrong brings it into view; it does not by itself show that what is held has been released. “I and my people” keeps shared guilt from making the speaker disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If my whole community shares the wrong, my own part disappears.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלַח
wayyishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
Send forth, release, stretch out the hand.
וַיִּשְׁלַח (wayyishlach, “he sent”) is the summons; its root שלח (sh-l-ḥ, “send forth/release”) also carries the reach of letting go. Pharaoh sends for Moses here, while release itself remains unspoken: the verse holds the distance between calling for help and loosening a grip.
ALSO GROWS
shallach: Send away or release; this verb appears in the command translated “Let my people go” in Exodus 5:1.
שַׁלַּח
The shared verb makes Pharaoh’s summons echo the release demanded elsewhere, while leaving clear that sending for Moses is not itself letting the people go.
shilluach: A sending away or dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch keeps release within the root’s range of meaning, illuminating the gap between calling someone and sending someone free.
חָטָאתִי
chatati
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
Miss, err, do wrong.
“missed the mark” in this verse is chatati. Pharaoh says “I have sinned,” and the root also names a missing or fault. The root keeps the wrong visible as a departure from what is right, rather than making it a fixed identity.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A fault or missing.
חֵטְא
It shows the concrete sense beneath the confession: Pharaoh names a failure, not merely a label.
chatta't: Missing or wrongdoing; also used for an offering associated with the missing.
חַטָּאת
This related form keeps the language of wrong tied to what has gone astray and needs to be brought into the open.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Justice, rightness, alignment.
“aligned” in this verse is tsaddiq. Alongside “righteous,” this root carries the sense of justice and alignment. Pharaoh sets the LORD’s alignment opposite his own and his people’s guilt, making the confession a recognition of the gap between them.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice or rightness.
צֶדֶק
It shows that the LORD’s righteousness is bound to what is just and rightly ordered.
tsedaqah: Righteousness or justice.
צְדָקָה
This related word keeps righteousness connected to right relation and action, not only to a status.
THE PATTERN
Confession tells the truth by naming both the shared wrong and the speaker’s own place within it.
Against you alone have I missed the mark, and done the evil in your eyes, so that you are aligned in your word and clear when you judge.We have missed, and have bent ourselves crooked, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by turning aside from your precepts and from your judgments.Speak your stumbles into the open to one another, and pray over one another, that you may be made whole. The asking of an aligned one, working within, is very strong.THE THREAD
Against you alone have I missed the mark, and done the evil in your eyes, so that you are aligned in your word and clear when you judge.The word translated “righteous” in Pharaoh’s confession and “justified” here come from the same root צדק (ts-d-q, justice/alignment). The psalm connects the LORD’s character to the truth spoken in judgment: what the LORD says stands in alignment.
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