What Does Exodus 9:14 Mean in the King James?

For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none like me in all the earth.

Exodus 9:14 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

What English calls “plagues,” Hebrew pictures as blows aimed at the heart, impact meant to make the speaker’s unmatched power known.

THE MEANING

The verse places the reader before power that strikes the heart and reaches servants and a whole people; its violence is explicit and collective. Its stated purpose is recognition: no one anywhere on earth is like the speaker.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a ruler’s authority can stand as an equal power beside the speaker.

THE ROOT

מַגֵּפֹתַי

maggēfōtay

GROWS FROM

נגף

to strike, smite, or suffer a blow

The Hebrew word for “plagues” grows from the strike-root ⁨נגף⁩ (n-g-p), carrying the image of blows rather than an abstract disaster. In ⁨מַגֵּפָה⁩ (maggēfāh), the root’s initial nun is assimilated into the following gimel; the word still bears the sense of a stroke landing on the heart and community.

ALSO GROWS

nāgaph: to strike or smite

נָגַף

This verbal form reveals the force beneath “plague”: an impact delivered.

niggaph: to be struck or defeated

נִגַּף

The same root names the receiving side of the blow, echoing the plagues falling upon the heart and people.

yiggōph: he will strike

יִנְגֹּף

This form presents striking as an action about to land, matching the verse’s announced plagues.

THE PATTERN

When earthly power claims ultimacy, its limits are exposed by the declaration that God has no equal.

Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.

Psalm 86:8 · KJVThe psalm names God’s incomparability through both identity and action.

Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me,

Isaiah 46:9 · KJVThe declaration “there is none like me” echoes the verse’s claim of no rival anywhere on earth.

As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.

1 Corinthians 8:4 · KJVThe verse carries the same pattern into the confession that no other god shares the speaker’s place.

THE THREAD

For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.

Exodus 12:23 · KJV

The “plagues” here and both uses of “smite” in Exodus 12:23 grow from ⁨נגף⁩ (n-g-p), the Hebrew strike-root. There the same root names the blow against Egypt and the blow kept from entering the marked houses.

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