What Does Exodus 4:7 Mean in the King James?
And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and, behold, it was turned again as his other flesh.
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
Restoration here is a return: the hand comes back in the likeness of his own flesh.
THE MEANING
The hand moves into concealment and comes back in the likeness of his own flesh. Restoration stands before you as a return to the body’s recognizable wholeness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the fear that a visible bodily change must become a permanent identity: the hand returns to the likeness of his flesh.
THE ROOT
שָׁבָה
shavah
GROWS FROM
שוב
to return, turn back
“turned again” in this verse is shavah. The Hebrew describes the hand as returning to the likeness of his flesh. English can make the moment sound like a changed condition; the root brings out the movement back toward bodily likeness.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: return, turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same root consonants and makes the verse’s movement of return visible in another form.
meshuvah: turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shares the root and shows that the direction of a turn matters: here the hand turns back to the likeness of his flesh.
וַיּוֹצִיאָהּ
wayyotsi’ah
GROWS FROM
יצא
to go out, emerge, depart
“plucked it out” in this verse is wayyotsi’ah. The verb is causative: he brings the hand out, making what was hidden visible again. The verse traces restoration through a concrete passage from concealment to emergence.
ALSO GROWS
yetsi’ah: going out, departure, exit
יְצִיאָה
The noun names the outward movement enacted when the hand comes out of the bosom.
motsa: outlet, place of origin
מוֹצָא
This branch keeps the sense of an emergence from within, illuminating the hand’s passage from concealment into view.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible when what has been altered returns to recognizable bodily wholeness.
Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.THE THREAD
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.Exodus says the hand שָׁבָה (shavah, “returned”), from שוב (shuv, “return”). Psalm 23:3 uses יְשׁוֹבֵב (yeshovev, “restores/returns”), from that same root, for the restoration of the speaker’s soul.
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