What Does Exodus 5:16 Mean in the King James?
There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in thine own people.
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
Withholding the means while keeping the demand turns an imposed shortage into punishment, and exposes whose fault it is.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the moment when the means to meet a demand are withheld, yet the demand remains. The resulting injury is physical, and the line places fault with the authority’s own side rather than treating the workers’ shortfall as a personal defect.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that failing under impossible conditions proves the worker is at fault; here, the authority controls the conditions that make the task impossible.
THE ROOT
מֻכִּים
mukkim
GROWS FROM
נכה
to strike or smite
The word translated “beaten” grows from נכה, the same root that forms the word for a blow. English can leave the beating as a report of harm, while the Hebrew connects the servants’ bodies to the wider language of striking.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: a blow; sometimes a plague
מַכָּה
The branch keeps the workers’ beating within a word-family for inflicted blows.
hikkah: to strike or smite
הִכָּה
This verbal form shares the root used for the servants’ beating and names the act itself.
חָטָאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
to miss, err, or go wrong
The word rendered “fault” shares its root with missing or erring. The accusation places the failing with Pharaoh’s people, while the root keeps fault connected to what has gone wrong or missed its mark.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: to miss or err
חָטָא
This verb from the same root makes the sense of fault a matter of going wrong, not a verdict on a person’s worth.
ḥoṭēʾ: one who misses or errs
חֹטֵא
The branch names the one associated with the error, illuminating how the verse directs responsibility toward Pharaoh’s side.
נִתָּן
nittan
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, or place
The verse describes the straw as something not given, then sets that absence beside the unchanged order to make bricks. This root exposes the imbalance: the supply is under someone’s control, while the demand and punishment remain with the workers.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
This verb names the act the verse says is absent: the straw is not being supplied.
mattanah: a gift or present
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root shows what is given as something placed into another’s hands, underscoring the authority’s control over provision.
THE PATTERN
Power becomes oppressive when it withholds provision or justice while making vulnerable people carry the resulting burden.
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.Exodus 2:11 uses the same נכה root for the Egyptian “smiting” a Hebrew that Exodus 5:16 uses for the servants’ beating. The repeated root makes the violence a continuing condition: one struck person and many beaten servants share the same word.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us