What Does Exodus 1:10 Mean in the King James?
Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.
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 “wisdom” here is a plan to contain a people before they become the threat their rulers imagine.
THE MEANING
This verse shows how fear turns a possible future into a present reason to manage a people. Their increase is treated as a threat before they join anyone or fight; the plan is called strategic wisdom. The reader sees how calculation can make containment sound prudent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the claim that preemptive control is neutral wisdom: a feared future does not make a people enemies in the present.
THE ROOT
נִתְחַכְּמָה
nitchakkemah
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
to be wise or skillful; to act with skill
“deal wisely” in this verse is nitchakkemah. The same seed gives both wisdom and the person recognized as wise, so this phrase names a mode of calculated skill. Here that skill is directed toward containing a people because of a war that has not happened.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: a wise or skilled person
חָכָם
This branch shows that the plan presents itself as the work of capable judgment.
ḥokhmāh: wisdom or skill
חָכְמָה
The shared root makes the ruler’s strategy sound like wisdom even as it aims at control.
יִרְבֶּה
yirbeh
GROWS FROM
רבה
r-b-h
to increase, become many, or grow great
“multiply” in this verse is yirbeh. The root carries the sense of increase and greatness, not only a count of people. The same increase named as flourishing in Exodus 1:7 becomes here the premise for imagining a future enemy.
ALSO GROWS
rav: many or great
רַב
This branch shows how increase can also be described as becoming great in number or stature.
hirbah: to increase or make many
הִרְבָּה
The causative form makes the root’s movement toward greater number explicit.
וְנוֹסַף
wenosaf
GROWS FROM
יסף
y-s-f
to add, increase, or continue
“join” in this verse is wenosaf. The feared joining is framed as being added: the same root can mean add or increase. The plan treats a people as a possible addition to its enemies, then uses that imagined addition to justify present control.
ALSO GROWS
hosif: to add, increase, or continue
הוֹסִיף
This branch makes the verse’s feared joining visible as an act of addition.
Yosef: Joseph; the name carries the sense “he adds”
יוֹסֵף
The name shares the root, showing how the same seed of adding and increase appears in a person’s name.
THE PATTERN
Fear of a possible future becomes a present plan to contain what may grow or spread.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.THE THREAD
And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.The word translated “multiply” in both verses comes from רבה (r-b-h), meaning to increase or become many. What Exodus 1:7 names as growth filling the land is what Exodus 1:10 recasts as a reason to fear.
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