What Does Exodus 9:13 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.
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
Release here is not aimless escape: the very people let go are released to serve.
THE MEANING
Where a Pharaoh-like grip narrows your movement, the LORD’s word names release as the needed change. The people are not released into emptiness; they move out of Pharaoh’s claim and into service to God. Freedom and belonging stand together here: the constricting claim ends, and a different direction opens.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that freedom means owing nothing to anyone or having no direction. Here release ends one power’s claim and opens service to God.
THE ROOT
שַׁלַּח
shallaḥ
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
Send forth, release, let go.
English “let go” can sound like simple departure, but שַׁלַּח (shallaḥ, send or release) carries the sense of sending someone out from another’s hold. שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, sent forth) belongs to this same root-family: release and sending are held together in the word.
ALSO GROWS
shillaḥ: Sent away, released.
שִׁלַּח
This form makes explicit the act of sending someone out; here the release ends Pharaoh’s hold.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of a watercourse.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the image of something sent onward, echoing the movement from release into service.
יַעַבְדֻנִי
yaʿavduni
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ד
Work, labor, serve.
יַעַבְדֻנִי (yaʿavduni, they may serve me) comes from עבד (ʿābad, work or serve), a root that can describe forced labor as well as service. The hinge is not work disappearing; it is Pharaoh’s claim over that work ending and service to God beginning.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The noun belongs to the same root-family as “serve,” tying a person’s role to the service named here.
avodah: Work, labor, service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch shows that the root can name labor itself; the verse turns on whose service claims that labor.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
Draw out.
Moses’ name carries the sense of being drawn out, as its naming explanation in Exodus 2:10 makes clear. He who was drawn from water now speaks the command that draws a people out from Pharaoh’s constriction.
ALSO GROWS
Moshe: Moses; drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name holds the drawing-out image in the person who speaks the command of release.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This verb form appears in the naming explanation in Exodus 2:10 and connects the name to the act of drawing out.
THE PATTERN
Release breaks one constricting claim and opens life toward a different service.
And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.THE THREAD
And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour:Both verses use עבד (ʿābad, work or serve), the root behind labor and service. The shared root reveals the pivot: release changes whose claim governs the people’s labor.
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