What Does Genesis 13:1 Mean in the King James?
And Abram went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the south.
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
Leaving Mitzrayim is pictured as an ascent that carries Abram’s whole life with him, his wife, all he has, and Lot.
THE MEANING
You are watching a whole life move out of constriction: Abram rises with his wife, all he has, and Lot beside him. Release is an ascent, and the next terrain is still part of the journey.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that release must be a private escape that leaves the rest of life behind: the verse names his wife, all he has, and Lot as part of the movement.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַל
vayyaʿal
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
rise, ascend, go up
“went up” in this verse is vayyaʿal. The verse names an ascent, not only a departure. The same root appears in עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering), whose name carries the image of what goes up.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolah: Burnt offering; an offering that goes up
עֹלָה
The shared root lets Abram’s rising resonate with the language of rising upward.
maʿaleh: Ascent or upward slope
מַעֲלֶה
This branch keeps the verse’s movement concrete: leaving is a rising along a way.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
Press in, bind; צַר (tsar) describes what is narrow or constricted. Mitzrayim echoes the narrow place, with its -ַיִם ending heard here as the two narrows.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. The name adds an image of constriction to the place Abram leaves. The verse’s ascent is therefore also a movement out of what presses life in.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricting
צַר
This related form makes the narrowness carried in Mitzrayim audible.
metzar: A narrow place or strait
מֵצַר
A strait is a constricted passage; Abram’s ascent begins by leaving that narrowed place.
tsarah: Distress or trouble
צָרָה
The branch connects constriction of space with the distress that can press in on a life.
אַבְרָם
Avram
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
Rise, be high, be exalted; Avram’s name means “exalted father.”
Abram’s name already carries the sound of exaltation, and the verse says he rises. The name and the action echo one another as he moves out of Mitzrayim.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High or exalted
רָם
This is the name element that gives Avram its sense of being exalted.
romem: Raise or exalt
רוֹמֵם
This verbal branch echoes the upward movement expressed by “went up.”
THE PATTERN
Movement out of confinement is repeatedly pictured as an ascent.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.THE THREAD
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The Hebrew verb עָלָה (ʿalah, rise or go up) names the movement in both verses. Here Abram rises out of Mitzrayim; in Exodus, the people are brought up from Egypt toward a land called good and large.
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