What Does Exodus 9:34 Mean in the King James?
And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
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 storm ceases outside while Pharaoh’s heart grows heavier inside.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in the quiet after pressure: the storm can stop without the heart being released. Pharaoh sees the rain, hail, and thunder cease, yet adds to his missing and makes his heart heavy; the stillness outside exposes the direction within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the end of a crisis proves the inner change is complete: outward relief can arrive while the heart’s direction remains fixed.
THE ROOT
וַיַּכְבֵּד
wayyakbed
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; in this verb form, to make heavy.
The Hebrew verb is literally “he made heavy,” so the heart is pictured as taking on weight, not merely becoming stiff. The same root forms kaved, “heavy,” and kavod, “weight,” restoring a connection the English word “hardened” conceals.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
It shows that the heart’s response is described in terms of weight.
kavod: Weight; what has substance.
כָּבוֹד
It carries the same root into the idea of weight, deepening what “hardened” holds here.
לַחֲטֹא
laḥaṭoʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss, miss the mark, or go wrong.
“sinned” in this verse is laḥaṭoʾ. The Hebrew pairs adding with missing: what is wrong grows cumulatively rather than ending when the storm ends. The root keeps the image of a miss inside the broad English category “sin.”
ALSO GROWS
chet: A missing or offense.
חֵטְא
It preserves the root’s concrete sense of missing within the verse’s description of sin.
chattat: A missing or sin; in sacrificial contexts, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
It shows the same root can name both the missing and a response directed toward it.
THE PATTERN
When immediate consequences are delayed, an unturned heart can grow more fixed in harm.
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;THE THREAD
But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.The word translated “hardened” comes from the same root כבד (k-b-d), “to make heavy.” At the first respite Pharaoh already makes his heart heavy; here, after the rain and hail stop, the same response returns with more missing added.
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