What Does Exodus 18:3 Mean in the King James?
And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:
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
Gershom is heard as “stranger there,” so displacement is built into a name rather than left as a passing feeling.
THE MEANING
Gershom holds the condition of being an outsider in the place where you stand: the name means “stranger there,” and the verse explains it with “I have been an alien in a strange land.” You can be physically present and still experience the surrounding place as foreign. The verse gives that experience a name instead of disguising it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that being somewhere means feeling at home there.
THE ROOT
גֵּר
gēr
GROWS FROM
גור
gur
To sojourn or reside as a foreigner.
“alien” in this verse is gēr. The name גֵּרְשֹׁם (Gērshōm, “stranger there”) is heard as גֵּר (gēr, “sojourner”) + שָׁם (shām, “there”), and the verse repeats גֵּר (gēr, “sojourner”) in its explanation. The word names someone living among others as an outsider, not merely a passing feeling of alienation.
ALSO GROWS
gūr: To sojourn or dwell as a foreigner.
גּוּר
The verb shows the condition in motion: the sojourner lives in a place without belonging to it as home.
megurim: Sojournings or places of sojourning.
מְגוּרִים
This branch carries the same root into the places a person inhabits, linking the outsider’s identity to the land around them.
נָכְרִיָּה
nokriyah
GROWS FROM
נכר
n-k-r
Foreignness: what is other or outside one’s own people or place.
The Hebrew marks the land itself as foreign, placing otherness on both sides: a sojourner and a land experienced as unfamiliar. “Strange” can suggest mere novelty, while this word points to what feels outside one’s own place.
ALSO GROWS
nokri: Foreign or a foreigner.
נָכְרִי
This branch describes a person as outside the familiar community, echoing the sojourner named in the verse.
nekar: Foreignness or foreign territory.
נֵכָר
This branch makes the land itself part of the estrangement: the place, too, lies outside what feels like home.
THE PATTERN
A person can inhabit a place while remaining a sojourner there.
I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.THE THREAD
And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;The Hebrew word translated “stranger” is גֵּר (gēr, “sojourner”), the same word Moses uses to explain Gershom’s name. Genesis names this condition before it is carried in a child’s name, making the “stranger there” a thread running through the story.
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