What Does Exodus 12:32 Mean in the King James?

Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

Exodus 12:32 · KJV

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

Pharaoh can command their departure, but he has to ask the very people he held for a blessing he cannot command.

THE MEANING

The flocks and herds leave with the people, and Pharaoh asks those he is sending away to bless him too. The command can direct their departure, but it cannot produce their blessing; that remains something he must ask them to give. The request reveals a limit to power even as it exercises power.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Authority can direct where another person goes, but it cannot compel the blessing that person gives.

THE ROOT

וּבֵרַכְתֶּם

u-verakhtem

GROWS FROM

ברך

barakh

To bless; the root is associated with ⁨בֶּרֶךְ⁩ (berekh), knee, carrying the image of bending the knee.

The request to bless carries the image of a bent knee beside Pharaoh’s command to depart. He can order the people away, yet asks those he has held to offer him something he cannot order: a blessing.

ALSO GROWS

berekh: Knee

בֶּרֶךְ

The shared root brings a bodily posture into the idea of blessing: a knee bends, and a blessing is given rather than seized.

berakhah: Blessing

בְּרָכָה

This is the blessing Pharaoh asks the departing people to speak over him.

THE PATTERN

Blessing can cross the boundary between a person and those who oppose or harm them.

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis 12:3 · KJVThe blessing given through one person reaches beyond that person to families across the earth.

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

Luke 6:28 · KJVThe blessing extends even across the line of hostility and harm.

Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.

Romans 12:14 · KJVThe same pattern holds where the relationship is marked by persecution.

THE THREAD

Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

Isaiah 19:25 · KJV

In Exodus, Pharaoh in Egypt asks the departing people for blessing; Isaiah uses the same root ⁨ברך⁩ (barakh, bless) when the LORD blesses Egypt and calls it “my people.” The root carries the request further: Egypt itself stands within the reach of blessing.

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