What Does Genesis 13:1 Mean?
And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.
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 Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.THE KEY
Leaving Mitzrayim is pictured as an ascent that carries Abram’s whole life with him, his wife, all he has, and Lot.
THE MEANING
You are watching a whole life move out of constriction: Abram rises with his wife, all he has, and Lot beside him. Release is an ascent, and the next terrain is still part of the journey.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that release must be a private escape that leaves the rest of life behind: the verse names his wife, all he has, and Lot as part of the movement.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַל
vayyaʿal
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
rise, ascend, go up
“went up” in this verse is vayyaʿal. The verse names an ascent, not only a departure. The same root appears in עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering), whose name carries the image of what goes up.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolah: Burnt offering; an offering that goes up
עֹלָה
The shared root lets Abram’s rising resonate with the language of rising upward.
maʿaleh: Ascent or upward slope
מַעֲלֶה
This branch keeps the verse’s movement concrete: leaving is a rising along a way.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
Press in, bind; צַר (tsar) describes what is narrow or constricted. Mitzrayim echoes the narrow place, with its -ַיִם ending heard here as the two narrows.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. The name adds an image of constriction to the place Abram leaves. The verse’s ascent is therefore also a movement out of what presses life in.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricting
צַר
This related form makes the narrowness carried in Mitzrayim audible.
metzar: A narrow place or strait
מֵצַר
A strait is a constricted passage; Abram’s ascent begins by leaving that narrowed place.
tsarah: Distress or trouble
צָרָה
The branch connects constriction of space with the distress that can press in on a life.
אַבְרָם
Avram
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
Rise, be high, be exalted; Avram’s name means “exalted father.”
Abram’s name already carries the sound of exaltation, and the verse says he rises. The name and the action echo one another as he moves out of Mitzrayim.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High or exalted
רָם
This is the name element that gives Avram its sense of being exalted.
romem: Raise or exalt
רוֹמֵם
This verbal branch echoes the upward movement expressed by “went up.”
THE PATTERN
Movement out of confinement is repeatedly pictured as an ascent.
And I have come down to snatch them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and wide land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.He lifts me out of a roaring pit, out of the clinging mud, and sets my feet on rock, and sets my steps firm.Therefore he says, "When he went up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to humankind."THE THREAD
And I have come down to snatch them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and wide land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The Hebrew verb עָלָה (ʿalah, rise or go up) names the movement in both verses. Here Abram rises out of Mitzrayim; in Exodus, the people are brought up from Egypt toward a land called good and large.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us