What Does Exodus 20:1 Mean in the King James?

And God spake all these words, saying,

Exodus 20:1 · KJV

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 same Hebrew root means both “to speak” and “a matter,” joining God’s utterance to the substance it names.

THE MEANING

God’s speech addresses you in the present: these words are not detached sounds but matters with substance. What the verse names as spoken reaches the life you are living now, where its meaning is still unfolding.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that these words are only remote text; the verse presents them as speech that bears substance and addresses you now.

THE ROOT

דְּבָרִים

devarim

GROWS FROM

ד־ב־ר

d-b-r

To speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.

The Hebrew verb for “spake” and the noun for “words” share this root. The word for what is spoken can also mean the matter or thing at hand, so God’s speech here carries substance, not sound alone.

ALSO GROWS

davar: Word, matter, affair, or thing.

דָּבָר

The same noun names both a spoken word and the matter it concerns, joining utterance with substance.

dibber: Spoke or declared; a verbal form of the root ⁨דבר⁩.

דִּבֵּר

This is the root’s speaking form, sharing its seed with ⁨דְּבָרִים⁩ (devarim), “words,” in the verse.

THE PATTERN

God’s spoken word carries substance: it opens creation, sustains life, and reaches the heart.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Genesis 1:3 · KJVThe jussive ⁨יְהִי אוֹר⁩ (yehi or, “let there be light”) frames light’s arrival through permission; the utterance opens creation.

And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

Deuteronomy 8:3 · KJVThe spoken word is presented as what sustains life, with nourishment coming from more than bread alone.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 · KJVThe word is living and active, reaching past outward appearance to discern the heart’s thoughts and aims.

THE THREAD

These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.

Deuteronomy 5:22 · KJV

The Hebrew again uses the same root for “spake” and “words,” making their shared seed audible where English gives two forms. It presents the words as spoken directly to the assembly before they are written down.

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