What Does Exodus 6:1 Mean in the King James?
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land.
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
Freedom arrives when the hand that holds is overruled until it sends its captives out.
THE MEANING
The power that confines you does not get the final say; it can be made to release what it holds. The repeated strong hand makes this release forceful: what is held is sent out of the constricting place. “Now shalt thou see” names the moment that change becomes visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that freedom depends on the captor deciding to become kind.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלְּחֵם
yeshallechem
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, send away, release.
The word translated “let them go” carries the movement of sending forth. The captives are not merely loosened from a grip; they are sent out of Pharaoh’s land.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: A messenger; one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
The same root makes sending the defining action: release carries someone outward to a new place.
Shiloach: Sent; the name of the waters at Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
This branch links sending with the waters associated with restored sight, echoing “Now shalt thou see.”
חֲזָקָה
chazaqah
GROWS FROM
חזק
Be strong, strengthen, take hold.
English “strong” can sound like a fixed quality, while this root also names the action of strengthening and holding fast. Here strength is active force: the release happens under pressure, not through Pharaoh’s goodwill.
ALSO GROWS
chazaq: Strong, mighty.
חָזָק
This adjective describes the force behind the repeated hand in the verse.
vayechazzeq: He strengthened or made firm; a form of the same root used when the LORD hardens Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 9:12).
וַיְחַזֵּק
The same root can describe Pharaoh’s resistance becoming firm and the force that overrules it.
THE PATTERN
Release breaks the hold that confines people and sends them into open life.
And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We be all dead men.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.Siloam, interpreted as “Sent,” belongs to the same שָׁלַח (shalach) word family as “let them go” here. In Exodus, sending carries people out of the place that holds them; at Siloam, the sent waters become the place where sight emerges, echoing “Now shalt thou see.”
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