What Does Genesis 21:21 Mean in the King James?
And he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt.
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
Ishmael dwells in the wilderness, yet his next family bond is drawn from Egypt: a new place does not by itself release the old constriction.
THE MEANING
A life can settle in a wilderness while a bond formed for it still comes from the land of constriction. The verse holds residence and inheritance in the same frame: changing place does not automatically loosen what reaches from the place left behind.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a new setting automatically frees the next part of life from the old one.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ṣ-r-r
To bind, press in, or make narrow.
Mitzrayim is heard here through צַר (tsar, narrow) and its -ayim ending: the two narrows. Egypt is more than a point of origin in this reading; its narrowness reaches forward through the bond chosen for Ishmael.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricted.
צַר
It gives the name Mitzrayim its sense of constriction.
tsarah: Distress, trouble.
צָרָה
It shows how constriction is felt as pressure in a life.
יָשַׁב
yashav
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-v
To sit, settle, remain, or dwell.
“dwelt” in this verse is yashav. Yashav folds sitting and dwelling into one word: the one who sits is also the one who settles. Ishmael is placed in Paran as a dwelling, while his future bond still reaches back to Egypt.
ALSO GROWS
yoshev: One who sits or dwells.
יֹשֵׁב
It makes dwelling a settled posture, not merely passing through.
moshav: A seat, settlement, or dwelling place.
מוֹשָׁב
It carries the root from a person who settles to the place of settlement.
THE PATTERN
Leaving a constricting place does not automatically release its hold on desire and allegiance.
We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,THE THREAD
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.In this verse, Hagar chooses a wife from Egypt for Ishmael; in Genesis 16:3, Hagar herself is the Egyptian woman given as Abram’s wife. The repeated Egypt-and-wife pairing lets the son’s marriage echo the mother’s entry into the family.
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