What Does Exodus 1:20 Mean in the King James?
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
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 verse places God’s enacted goodness to the midwives beside the people’s multiplying, so goodness appears as life that pressure cannot stop.
THE MEANING
God deals well with the midwives, while the people multiply and become exceedingly strong. You are seeing a living pattern: pressure does not set the final measure of what protected life can become. Goodness and increase stand together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that threatened life must inevitably shrink: pressure does not hold the final measure of what can grow.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּיטֶב
vayyēṭev
GROWS FROM
יטב
to be good; to do good
“dealt well” in this verse is vayyēṭev. The Hebrew verb carries the force of active good: the same root can mean to be good and to do good. Here goodness is enacted toward the midwives, beside the people’s increase.
ALSO GROWS
yāṭav: be good, be pleasing
יָטַב
This form shares the root יטב and shows goodness as a quality that can be present and experienced.
hēṭîv: do good, treat well
הֵיטִיב
This form shares the root יטב and makes explicit the active sense carried by “dealt well.”
וַיִּרֶב
vayyirev
GROWS FROM
רבה
to become many; to increase
“multiplied” in this verse is vayyirev. The root can describe becoming many or making many. Here the people are becoming numerous, so multiplication appears as a continuing process of growth.
ALSO GROWS
rāvâ: become many, increase
רָבָה
This form shares the root רבה and shows the people’s increase as growth over time.
hirbâ: make many, multiply
הִרְבָּה
This form shares the root רבה and reveals the causative side of the same increase.
וַיַּעַצְמוּ
vayyaʿaṣmû
GROWS FROM
עצם
to become mighty or strong
“waxed very mighty” in this verse is vayyaʿaṣmû. The people are not only increasing in number; they are growing strong. The same consonants name both becoming mighty and might itself, pairing multiplication with strength.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṣam: become mighty, grow strong
עָצַם
This verb shares the root עצם and makes the people’s growing strength explicit.
ʿōtsem: might, strength
עֹצֶם
This noun shares the root עצם and shows the strength contained in the people’s becoming mighty.
THE PATTERN
Life kept from destruction continues to increase, even under pressure.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel.And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.But the word of God grew and multiplied.THE THREAD
Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts.The psalm’s “Do good” is הֵיטִיבָה (hēṭîvāh, “do good”), from the same root יטב as “dealt well” in Exodus. The shared root shows goodness as an action that meets people, not only a quality attributed to God.
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