What Does Exodus 5:12 Mean in the King James?
So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw.
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 verse turns deprivation into distance: the less provision remains, the farther a whole people must spread to gather it.
THE MEANING
What sustains you is reduced to scraps while the work remains, spreading your energy across a wide landscape in search of what is left. That search pulls people away from one another; deprivation costs both provision and shared presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that searching farther for scraps proves personal failure: the verse locates the deprivation in what has been replaced, not in the worth of those searching.
THE ROOT
וַיָּפֶץ
wayyāpheṣ
GROWS FROM
פוץ
pūts: to scatter, disperse, spread apart.
“scattered” in this verse is wayyāpheṣ. The verb names dispersal itself, not merely a people happening to occupy a large area. Then the sentence places that spreading beside the work of gathering scraps: separation and collection belong to the same scene.
ALSO GROWS
hēphîts: scatter; spread abroad
הֵפִיץ
This form names the act of spreading others out, bringing the force of dispersion into view.
təfutsah: dispersion; distribution
תְּפוּצָה
This noun names a dispersed state or distribution, linking the people spread over the land with dispersion as an ongoing condition.
THE PATTERN
When provision contracts, survival turns toward whatever fragments remain.
And Ruth the Moabitess said unto Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find grace. And she said unto her, Go, my daughter.And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.THE THREAD
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.The same Hebrew root פוץ (pūts, “to scatter, disperse”) underlies “scattered” in both verses. Here a people are spread across the land to collect scraps; in Zechariah, a flock scatters when its shepherd is struck, showing dispersion as the fracture of a bond.
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