What Does Exodus 10:9 Mean in the King James?
And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD.
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
Moses (מֹשֶׁה, Mosheh, “drawn out”) speaks a freedom that leaves no generation or livelihood behind.
THE MEANING
Freedom here moves as a whole household: the young and old, daughters and sons, flocks and herds all belong within the going. The feast travels with the people; it does not require their lives to be divided into what may go and what must remain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the claim that freedom can be partial: the people may go while their children, elders, or livelihood remain under another’s control.
THE ROOT
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
To draw out.
“Moses” in this verse is Mosheh. The name carries the motion of being drawn out. Here that movement expands from one life to a whole people, with every generation and herd included in the departure.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the root action echoed in the explanation of Moses’ name.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This is the verb form used when Moses is named in Exodus 2:10, giving the name its “drawn out” nature.
Mosheh: Moses; the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name links the speaker’s own identity with the movement of being drawn out.
חַג
ḥag
GROWS FROM
חגג
To keep a festival or make a pilgrimage.
The feast word carries a pilgrimage sense: this is a celebration the people enter by moving. Its place after the full list ties the feast to the whole community’s departure.
ALSO GROWS
ḥag: Feast, festival, or pilgrimage festival.
חַג
This is the word translated “feast” here, naming the shared observance the people go to keep.
ḥāgag: To keep a festival or make a pilgrimage.
חָגַג
The verb presents the feast as an act the people enter, not merely an event they watch.
ḥagigah: Festival celebration or festival offering.
חֲגִיגָה
This related word carries the festival into its celebration and offering.
נֵלֵךְ
nēlēkh
GROWS FROM
הלך
To walk or go.
“go” in this verse is nēlēkh. The same verb frames both halves of the declaration while the repeated list adds each generation and herd to its company. The departure is a shared movement, not a permission limited to one part of life.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To walk or go.
הָלַךְ
This is the root verb behind “we will go.”
holekh: One who walks or goes.
הוֹלֵךְ
The participle keeps the same moving sense in the figure of a person on the way.
halikhah: Walking or a journey.
הֲלִיכָה
This noun shows how the root can name movement as an ongoing path.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance gathers the whole household and what sustains it into the movement.
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.THE THREAD
Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.The same Hebrew root הלך (halakh, “walk/go”) carries the going of the people and the going of their cattle. The movement admits no half-release: the people, their worship, and the animals that sustain them remain together.
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