What Does Exodus 13:20 Mean in the King James?
And they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness.
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
They leave a place whose name means “booths” and stop at the wilderness’s edge, holding shelter and threshold together in one moment of transition.
THE MEANING
You can have left one setting and still be at the edge of the next. The verse holds departure and pause together: movement has happened, but the wilderness remains a boundary before you. A pause at the threshold is part of the journey, not proof that nothing has changed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a real transition must carry you all the way into the next terrain at once; this verse places a camp at the boundary.
THE ROOT
סֻכּוֹת
Sukkot
GROWS FROM
סכך
To cover, screen, or shelter.
Succoth is the plural of sukkah, “booth,” a shelter associated with the root סכך, “to cover.” The route carries this image of covering as the people move toward the wilderness edge: departure and shelter coexist at the threshold.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: Booth or shelter.
סֻכָּה
The place-name is the plural of this word, so the route begins from a name marked by shelter.
sekhakh: Covering or roofing for a booth.
סְכָךְ
This branch makes the shelter image concrete: a sukkah is covered.
THE PATTERN
A transition can unfold in stages: departure, a pause at the boundary, then entry into unfamiliar ground.
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.THE THREAD
And Jacob journeyed to Succoth, and built him an house, and made booths for his cattle: therefore the name of the place is called Succoth.Genesis ties the name Succoth directly to booths: סֻכּוֹת (Sukkot, “booths”) names the place because booths are made there. The shared word lets Exodus’s place-name retain its concrete image of shelter as the route reaches the wilderness edge.
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