What Does Exodus 10:17 Mean in the King James?
Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and intreat the LORD your God, that he may take away from me this death only.
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 plea to “forgive” is literally an appeal to lift the speaker’s sin, picturing pardon as the removal of a carried burden.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into a narrowed moment: wrongdoing is named as “my sin” and treated as a burden that can be lifted. Death, too, is named directly, and the plea asks for it to be removed; “this once” and “this death only” make the urgency unmistakable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a named wrong can only cling to you: the plea calls it “my sin” and asks for it to be lifted.
THE ROOT
שָׂא
śāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
lift, carry, bear
In the plea, שָׂא (śāʾ, lift) comes from נשא (nasa, lift, carry, bear), the verb behind “forgive.” The related מַשָּׂא (massa, burden) keeps the image of a load in view: this request pictures pardon as lifting what is being carried.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: lift, carry, bear
נָשָׂא
This is the root verb behind the plea’s “lift”; its consonants connect pardon with bearing something away.
massa: burden, load
מַשָּׂא
This noun shares the נשא (nasa, lift, carry, bear) root and names the kind of load the plea pictures being lifted.
חַטָּאתִי
chattaʾti
GROWS FROM
חטא
miss, go wrong, miss the mark
The word rendered “sin” comes from חטא (chata, miss or go wrong), also seen in חֵטְא (chet, a miss or sin). The confession names what has gone off course while asking for it to be lifted, linking acknowledgment with release rather than concealment.
ALSO GROWS
chata: to miss, go wrong, sin
חָטָא
This verb shares the root’s חטא consonants and gives “my sin” the concrete sense of a miss or wrong turn.
chet: a miss, sin
חֵטְא
This noun carries the same חטא root, preserving the image of what has missed its mark.
THE PATTERN
Release is pictured as lifting the weight of wrongdoing and bearing it away.
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.The Hebrew form נְשׂוּי (nesui, lifted or borne) in Psalm 32:1 comes from נשא (nasa, lift, carry, bear), the root behind “forgive” here. The parallel makes the image clear: transgression is something lifted, not a permanent identity.
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