What Does Deuteronomy 6:21 Mean in the King James?
Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand:
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 story passed to the next generation names bondage honestly, but gives the decisive action to the LORD: he brought us out.
THE MEANING
This verse gives your freedom a first-person plural: “we” were bound, and the LORD brought us out. The constriction is real, but it is not the final condition; deliverance breaks its hold and becomes a story the next generation can carry.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that bondage is your defining inheritance: the story does not end with “we were bondmen,” but continues with “the LORD brought us out.”
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ
vayyotsi'enu
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
To go out, come forth, or exit.
“brought us out” in this verse is vayyotsi'enu. The verb here is causative: the LORD causes “us” to go out. The verse holds deliverance as a movement out of constriction, received through a mighty hand rather than made by the bondmen themselves.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi'ah: Departure; going out or exit.
יְצִיאָה
It makes the deliverance a real passage out of the narrow place, not just a change in how bondage is described.
motsa: An outlet or way out.
מוֹצָא
The shared root carries the image of an opening through which those held in bondage can emerge.
עֲבָדִים
avadim
GROWS FROM
עבד
avad
To work or serve.
“bondmen” in this verse is avadim. The same root names both the people serving and the labor or service that defines their condition. The verse does not hide their bondage; it places that truth inside a larger movement out.
ALSO GROWS
eved: A servant; here, a bondman or slave.
עֶבֶד
This singular form carries the same root into the person whose life is bound to service.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
It exposes the laboring system behind the identity “bondmen”: the bondage orders both the work and the people doing it.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance moves people out of bondage, and remembrance keeps that movement alive across generations.
And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.THE THREAD
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Exodus 20:2 uses the same root, יצא (yatsa), “to go out,” in “brought thee out.” Here, that deliverance becomes a story told from parent to child; in Exodus, it is also the ground from which the covenant speaks.
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