What Does Deuteronomy 15:15 Mean in the King James?
And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The command to release another is rooted in holding your own bondage and the LORD’s release of you in the same memory.
THE MEANING
Your memory holds two facts together: you know bondage, and the LORD your God brings you out. The command takes shape in that joined memory, so the release you have received becomes the measure of how you meet another person’s bondage.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being free makes your own former bondage irrelevant to how you treat someone still bound.
THE ROOT
וְזָכַרְתָּ
vezakharta
GROWS FROM
זכר
remember; call to mind
“remember” in this verse is vezakharta. Remembering is the hinge between received release and the present command. The same root forms a memorial and the act of bringing something to remembrance, keeping the former condition available in the present.
ALSO GROWS
zikkaron: memorial; remembrance
זִכָּרוֹן
The shared root gives memory a form that can be kept; here, remembrance remains a frame for the command.
hizkir: mention; bring to remembrance
הִזְכִּיר
This form makes remembering active: something is brought to mind, as the verse brings bondage and release into the present together.
עֶבֶד
eved
GROWS FROM
עבד
serve; work; be a servant
“bondman” in this verse is eved. The word for the person who was bound belongs to the same root as service and labor. This keeps bondage concrete as a condition of work and dependence, held beside the fact of being redeemed.
ALSO GROWS
avodah: service; labor
עֲבֹדָה
The shared root connects the bondman’s condition with the labor that marks it.
oved: worker; one who serves
עֹבֵד
This form names one who works or serves, showing the consonants shared with the verse’s word for bondman.
THE PATTERN
Received release keeps remembered bondage present in the way release is extended to others.
Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.THE THREAD
But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.The same root זכר (z-k-r, “remember”) anchors both commands. Here, as there, remembrance of bondage and the LORD’s redemption is the hinge between what has been received and what is commanded now.
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