What Does Exodus 2:9 Mean in the King James?
And Pharaoh’s daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it.
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
The palace pays Moses’s own mother to nurse him, and Hebrew’s word for nursing also names a tender shoot.
THE MEANING
A life separated from its source of nourishment is brought back into the care that sustains it. Care is material here: the mother receives wages for nursing the child.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that separation by power means the loss of maternal care; here, the royal household pays the child’s mother to nurse him.
THE ROOT
וַתְּנִיקֵהוּ
vatteniqehu
GROWS FROM
ינק
y-n-q
To suck or draw milk; by extension, to suckle and nourish.
“nursed” in this verse is vatteniqehu. The nursing word shares its root with a word for a young shoot. Hebrew links a child receiving nourishment with new life drawing strength to grow, a connection English leaves beneath the surface.
ALSO GROWS
mēneqet: A woman who nurses or suckles a child.
מֵינֶקֶת
This is the nurse proposed in Exodus 2:7; the care arranged there is now given by Moses’s own mother.
yōnēq: One who suckles; also a young shoot or tender plant.
יוֹנֵק
Isaiah 53:2 uses this word for a tender plant, linking the nourishment of a child with the growth of a shoot.
שְׂכָרֵךְ
śĕkārēkh
GROWS FROM
שכר
ś-k-r
To hire or pay; שָׂכָר (śākār) is wages or reward.
“wages” in this verse is śĕkārēkh. The verse names nursing as work that receives payment. The royal household’s money becomes material provision for the mother and the child she sustains.
ALSO GROWS
śākār: Payment for work or service; a reward.
שָׂכָר
This is the same noun as in the verse, making the mother’s care visible as labor with a material return.
śākîr: A person hired to work for wages.
שָׂכִיר
The related word for a hired worker clarifies the payment relationship behind the daughter’s promise.
THE PATTERN
A threatened life is preserved when care and provision arrive through an unexpected person.
When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.THE THREAD
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.The word rendered “tender plant” is יוֹנֵק (yōnēq), from the same root ינק as “nursed” here. Hebrew links a child receiving nourishment with a young shoot drawing life and growing.
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