What Does Exodus 9:19 Mean in the King James?
Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die.
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
The Hebrew send-root can mean send forth or release, and here a sent warning opens the way to gather exposed life before the hail falls.
THE MEANING
The warning arrives before the hail: people and animals left in the field die, while what is gathered home is sheltered. The verse speaks now wherever danger is named while something remains exposed; the warning marks a chance to move it before the harm comes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a warning of coming harm means every outcome is already fixed: here, what is gathered home does not share the fate of what remains exposed.
THE ROOT
שְׁלַח
shalach
GROWS FROM
שלח
š-l-ḥ
to send forth, dispatch, or release
Here the command is to send someone to gather the cattle; the word itself also carries the sense of release. The same root appears in the demand to Pharaoh to let the people go, so this warning’s call to send forth echoes the larger demand for release.
ALSO GROWS
shallach: let go, release
שַׁלַּח
This is the same root in Exodus 9:1, where Pharaoh is told to let the people go; it shows the release held within the word translated “Send” here.
shilluach: sending away or dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
This noun preserves the root’s movement outward, adding the sense of sending away to its meaning of dispatch.
יֵאָסֵף
ye'asef
GROWS FROM
אסף
'-s-p
to gather, collect, bring together
The Hebrew says the creature not brought home will not be “gathered” into the house. The root also names harvest ingathering and assemblies, so shelter here is a movement from exposed scattering into a collected place.
ALSO GROWS
asif: ingathering, harvest
אָסִיף
Exodus 23:16 uses this form for the harvest gathered in; it makes the gathering in Exodus 9:19 feel like the collection of what is exposed before loss.
asuppah: assembly, collection
אֲסֻפָּה
Ecclesiastes 12:11 uses this related word for assemblies, extending the root’s image from gathering things to gathering people.
THE PATTERN
A warning preserves a path to life by prompting movement out of danger before it arrives.
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:THE THREAD
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.The word translated “Send” here and “Let my people go” in 9:1 comes from the same Hebrew root, שלח (shalach), meaning send forth or release. In this verse, sending initiates the gathering of endangered life; in the earlier command, release is demanded for the people.
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