What Does Genesis 19:13 Mean?
For we will ruin this place, because their outcry has grown great before the face of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to ruin it.
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 we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.THE KEY
The cry stands before the LORD, and the response is a mission of destruction, named with the same verb twice.
THE MEANING
A cry is pictured as something that can stand before the LORD and grow great. Here, the stated response is a dispatch to destroy the place, and the destructive verb appears twice.
THE ROOT
מַשְׁחִיתִים
mashchitim
GROWS FROM
שחת
shachat
To ruin, corrupt, or destroy.
This root spans active destruction and a condition of ruin: the same root describes the earth as “corrupt” in Genesis 6:11. Here it appears twice, making destruction the explicit purpose of the sending.
ALSO GROWS
hamashchit: The destroyer
הַמַּשְׁחִית
In Exodus 12:23, this form names the destroyer, showing the root as both an act and an agent.
nishchatah: Was corrupt, was ruined
נִשְׁחָתָה
In Genesis 6:11, the same root describes a ruined condition, widening destruction from an action to the state it leaves behind.
צַעֲקָתָם
tse'aqatam
GROWS FROM
צעק
tsa'aq
To cry out; a voiced appeal or outcry.
The root also names people crying aloud from bondage in Exodus 2:23. The verse presents this outcry as having grown great enough to stand before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
vayyits'aqu: And they cried out
וַיִּצְעֲקוּ
This verbal form in Exodus 2:23 makes the cry an uttered appeal rising from distress.
tse'aqah: Outcry, cry for help
צְעָקָה
The noun form holds the appeal as something that can be heard and answered.
וַיִּשְׁלַח
vayyishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
To send forth, dispatch, or release.
The verb names an actual dispatch, while its root can also carry the sense of sending forth or releasing. The same root is heard in שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, “sent forth”), the waters associated with restored sight in John 9:7; here the following clause specifies the mission as destruction.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send, send forth, release
שָׁלַח
This root verb names the act of dispatch that begins the messengers’ mission.
Shiloach: Shiloah; sent forth
שִׁלֹחַ
Isaiah 8:6 names the waters of Shiloah, and John 9:7 glosses Siloam as “Sent,” extending the sending root into an image of water that carries restored sight.
THE PATTERN
A cry that reaches God’s hearing becomes part of the case that precedes divine action.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.Both verses use שָׁלַח (shalach, “send forth”): the verb names a dispatch, and the following words specify its work. Genesis 19:13 names destruction; Exodus 3:10 names bringing people out, showing the shared root carrying two sharply defined missions.
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