What Does Exodus 4:24 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
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 LORD’s meeting arrives paired with the stated purpose of causing death, so divine encounter here is not automatically safe.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you with an encounter that is neither tame nor sentimental: the LORD meets him and seeks his life. It holds divine presence and lethal threat together without explaining the tension away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that an encounter with God always feels reassuring or safe.
THE ROOT
הֲמִיתוֹ
hamito
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
“kill” in this verse is hamito. This form is a causative infinitive with a him suffix: to cause him to die. The root also names dying and death, joining the intended act to the mortality it brings about.
ALSO GROWS
mût: To die.
מוּת
This is the basic verbal sense beneath the causative form in the verse.
māvet: Death.
מָוֶת
The noun names the outcome the verse says the LORD seeks for him.
THE PATTERN
An encounter with God can expose human mortality rather than assure immediate safety.
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:THE THREAD
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.Psalm 18:4 uses the same root for death that Exodus 4:24 uses in the causative form of kill. The shared root holds dying, death, and causing death in one family, making the threat in this encounter stark.
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