What Does Exodus 14:21 Mean in the King James?
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
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, the one named “drawn out”, stands over the sea while ruach, the word for both wind and breath, opens a way through it.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where the way appears closed: what surrounds you is driven back, divided, and made passable, with the opening held through the whole night. Moses, whose name carries the sense “drawn out,” stands over the water as ruach moves through it. The passage opens by a parting, not by making the sea disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A barrier must vanish completely before a way through can exist.
THE ROOT
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
Moving air; breath, including wind.
The word translated “wind” is ruach, the same Hebrew word used for breath. English separates the movement of air outside the body from breath within it, while Hebrew holds both meanings in one word.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind; moving air.
רוּחַ
This is the word used in the verse: ruach moves across the sea through the night.
ruach: Breath.
רוּחַ
The same word gives the wind its connection to breath, rather than treating them as unrelated forces.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out, especially from water.
Moses’s name carries the sense “drawn out,” as Exodus 2:10 explains it through the act of drawing him out of water. Here the one whose name bears that nature stretches his hand over the water as a way opens through it.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verbal root behind the name Moshe and its association with being drawn from water.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
Exodus 2:10 uses this form to explain Moshe’s name, making “drawn out” part of his identity.
וַיִּבָּקְעוּ
vayibaqqu
GROWS FROM
בקע
b-q-ʿ
To cleave, split open.
“divided” in this verse is vayibaqqu. The waters do not simply disappear: the verb says they split open. Its root also names an opened expanse, so the division itself is what makes a passage possible.
ALSO GROWS
baqaʿ: To split or cleave open.
בָּקַע
This is the root verb behind the waters being divided in the verse.
biqʿah: A valley or open plain.
בִּקְעָה
The related word names an opened space, echoing how a split in the waters creates room for passage.
THE PATTERN
A way through appears when waters are gathered or divided and dry ground is exposed.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned.THE THREAD
That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?Isaiah uses the same root, בקע (baqaʿ, split open), for the water divided before them. The shared root links the opening of the sea with the act of being led: the path appears as the waters are split ahead.
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