What Does Exodus 12:17 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.
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 day of being brought out becomes something each generation keeps, making release a living inheritance.
THE MEANING
The day of being brought out remains active in your present as a day held in care. Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim: the two narrows) names constriction, and the kept feast carries the memory of its opening across generations.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The day of release can be left behind once escape is complete; this verse keeps it woven into the generations that follow.
THE ROOT
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
u-shemartem
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
shamar
to guard, keep, watch over
Shamar carries both observance and guarding: keeping the feast means holding the memory of being brought out in care. English “observe” can sound like looking at a date; the Hebrew carries the force of preserving what the day means.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: keeper, guardian
שֹׁמֵר
The one who keeps watch gives the verse’s keeping an active, protective sense.
mishmeret: charge, watch, guard duty
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
A charge is something entrusted to be kept, like the day entrusted to each generation.
הוֹצֵאתִי
hotsati
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
to go out, emerge, depart
“Brought out” is the causative form of yatsa, the root of going out: the exit is a passage enacted for you. The same day is both the going out and the day kept across generations, so remembrance preserves the movement rather than merely marking a date.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: to go out, come forth
יָצָא
This is the root’s basic movement, the departure held in the verse’s “brought out.”
motsa: exit, outlet, going forth
מוֹצָא
An exit names the passage from within constriction to beyond it.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
to bind, press in, constrict
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the image of the narrow place, doubled in its -ayim ending: the two narrows. In this verse, being brought out turns constriction into a passage, and the feast keeps that passage present across generations.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: narrow, tight, constricting
צַר
This word holds the sense of narrowness carried by the name Mitzrayim.
metsar: strait, narrow place
מֵצַר
A narrow place makes “brought out” a movement from constriction into open space.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance remains present through practices that carry its meaning into each generation.
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.Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.THE THREAD
The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.This verse brings the same two roots together: שׁמר (shamar), “guard,” in “preserve,” and יצא (yatsa), “go out,” in “going out.” Exodus says the day of going out is kept across generations; here, the going out itself is held under the LORD’s keeping.
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