What Does Genesis 19:22 Mean in the King James?
Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
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 catastrophe cannot proceed until Lot reaches a refuge named for being little: the smallness he asks for becomes the boundary that shelters him.
THE MEANING
Escape is urgent, yet the destructive force cannot proceed until you reach the place named for its smallness. The little refuge stands as a real boundary; its size does not make it unable to shelter life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a refuge is too small to matter is undone: the little city is where life can be sheltered.
THE ROOT
צֹעַר
Tsoʿar
GROWS FROM
צער
To be little or insignificant; smallness.
“Zoar” in this verse is Tsoʿar. The name repeats the very quality Lot invokes when asking to be spared: smallness. The refuge is known by its littleness, yet its arrival sets a limit on destruction.
ALSO GROWS
mitsʿar: A little thing; something small.
מִצְעָר
Lot uses this word for the city he asks to reach; Zoar’s name carries that same smallness.
tsaʿir: Little, small, or young.
צָעִיר
This adjective from the same root shows how smallness can also describe what is young or not yet grown.
הִמָּלֵט
himmālēṭ
GROWS FROM
מלט
To slip away or escape; in causative forms, to bring someone safely out.
The root holds both getting clear of danger and bringing another out of it. Here escape is not an abstract idea: it has a destination, and the destructive act waits for arrival.
ALSO GROWS
nimlaṭ: Escaped; got away.
נִמְלַט
This form shows the one under threat getting clear, the movement Lot is commanded to make.
milleṭ: Rescued; let escape.
מִלֵּט
This form makes the root active toward another: escape can also mean bringing someone out of danger.
THE PATTERN
Destruction is bounded while refuge is entered or protection is set in place.
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.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.Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.THE THREAD
Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.Lot asks to flee to the city because it is “a little one,” and asks whether his life can be sheltered there. The next verse names the refuge Zoar from the same root of smallness: his request becomes the city’s name.
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