What Does Exodus 5:5 Mean in the King James?
And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them rest from their burdens.
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
Pharaoh’s complaint exposes a system where other people’s rest registers as a threat because power depends on their continued burden-bearing.
THE MEANING
The voice here counts a people growing numerous, then treats their pause from carrying burdens as a problem. Their rest becomes threatening because the arrangement depends on them continuing to carry. The verse lets you hear power expose itself through what it cannot permit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that rest itself is the threat; Pharaoh’s alarm shows how control depends on people continuing to bear burdens.
THE ROOT
וְהִשְׁבַּתֶּם
ve-hishbattem
GROWS FROM
שבת
Cease, stop, or bring to an end.
“make them rest” in this verse is ve-hishbattem. Pharaoh’s verb names making labor cease, not just taking a pleasant pause. The same root gives Sabbath its name, connecting this forced halt to the word for a recurring cessation of work.
ALSO GROWS
shabbat: Sabbath; a day of cessation from work.
שַׁבָּת
The shared root makes Pharaoh’s objection about rest echo the word for a rhythm of cessation.
shabbaton: A Sabbath rest or solemn cessation.
שַׁבָּתוֹן
This branch makes the root’s association with a marked, protected pause audible.
מִסִּבְלֹתָם
missivlotam
GROWS FROM
סבל
Bear, carry, or support a load.
The word for burdens grows from the language of bearing and carrying. Beside the root for cessation, it puts stopping and carrying in direct tension: these people are the ones bearing the load.
ALSO GROWS
sabal: To bear or carry a load.
סָבַל
The verb makes the physical action inside burden-bearing visible.
sabbal: A bearer or porter.
סַבָּל
This related noun names the person doing the carrying, clarifying whose work the threatened pause interrupts.
THE PATTERN
Rest interrupts a burden-bearing order when that order depends on people continuing to carry.
Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.THE THREAD
Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.The command “thou shalt rest” uses the same שבת root as Pharaoh’s “make them rest.” Here, cessation reaches workers, animals, and strangers, opening a different view of the pause Pharaoh treats as a problem.
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