What Does Exodus 2:22 Mean in the King James?
And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger 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’s name holds the condition in its sound: גֵּר שָׁם (ger sham, “a sojourner there”).
THE MEANING
You can be present in a place and still feel foreign to it. Gershom gives that tension a name: the sojourner is there, yet the land remains strange. Being housed somewhere does not automatically make it home.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that living somewhere means you must feel at home there.
THE ROOT
גֵּר
ger
GROWS FROM
ג־ו־ר
To sojourn or dwell among a people as a resident alien.
“stranger” in this verse is ger. The narrative invites the sound-play גֵּר שָׁם (ger sham, “a sojourner there”): Gershom’s name echoes the condition named in the sentence. The root holds two facts together: he dwells in the land, yet that dwelling does not make him native to it.
ALSO GROWS
gur: To sojourn or dwell as a resident alien.
גּוּר
The verb behind “stranger” makes this a way of dwelling in a place, not merely a feeling of oddness.
megurim: Sojournings or temporary dwellings.
מְגוּרִים
This branch keeps the sense of residing somewhere without that place necessarily becoming home.
נָכְרִיָּה
nokhriyah
GROWS FROM
נ־כ־ר
Foreign or other; in related forms, to recognize something as distinct.
The land is described as outside the speaker’s familiar world. The root’s connection with recognizing what is distinct gives “strange” a relational shade: the place is known as other, rather than simply unusual.
ALSO GROWS
nekar: Foreignness or a foreign land.
נֵכָר
This noun carries the same sense of being outside the familiar that marks the land in the verse.
hikkir: To recognize or acknowledge.
הִכִּיר
The shared root links foreignness with recognizing something as distinct from what is familiar.
THE PATTERN
A name can hold an experience in words, keeping the reality it carries visible.
And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the LORD hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.THE THREAD
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.The same word גֵּר (ger, “stranger” or “sojourner”) appears here. It shows the tension in Exodus 2:22: a person can dwell among others and still be marked as a stranger.
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