What Does Genesis 41:14 Mean in the King James?
Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon: and he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh.
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 word translated “sent” is וַיִּשְׁלַח (vayishlach, “and he sent forth”): the summons begins Joseph’s release from the pit and carries him into Pharaoh’s presence.
THE MEANING
Confinement does not determine where you can appear next: a summons can move you out of the pit with startling speed. The change is visible before Joseph speaks, he shaves, changes clothes, and enters Pharaoh’s room.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the place holding you now determines your next place.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלַח
vayishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth, dispatch, or release.
The summons is more than a call to come: the root carries the sense of being sent forth. Here it begins a movement out of confinement, and the next verb makes that movement urgent.
ALSO GROWS
shillach: Send away; release.
שִׁלַּח
The same root behind “let go” makes release part of the word’s range, illuminating how the summons starts Joseph’s exit from the pit.
Shiloach: Sent; the name Siloam means “Sent.”
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the same sending-root found here: a movement outward that carries someone toward a new encounter.
יוֹסֵף
Yosef
GROWS FROM
יסף
yasaph
Add, increase, or continue.
Joseph’s name carries the nature of “he adds.” Beside his passage from the pit into Pharaoh’s presence, that name makes the entrance feel like the opening of a new field, not only an escape.
ALSO GROWS
yasaph: Add; do again or continue.
יָסַף
This verb supplies the root sense compressed into Joseph’s name, giving his arrival a sense of more being added to what is possible.
tosefet: Addition; something added.
תּוֹסֶפֶת
This branch makes the name’s root concrete: Joseph’s entrance is an arrival that can bring an addition to the room he enters.
וַיְרִיצֻהוּ
vayritsuhu
GROWS FROM
רוץ
ruts
Run.
“hastily” in this verse is vayritsuhu. The Hebrew says they caused him to run, making the speed of the transition explicit. Joseph is not simply brought out; the verse gives his movement urgency, from the pit straight toward Pharaoh.
ALSO GROWS
rats: A runner; one who runs.
רָץ
This branch keeps the root’s motion bodily and direct, matching the hurried extraction from the pit.
merots: A race or course of running.
מֵרוֹץ
The root can describe sustained motion; here that motion compresses the distance between confinement and the encounter ahead.
THE PATTERN
A summons can move the confined out of a closed place and into a new field of action.
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.THE THREAD
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.Exodus 3:10 uses the same root, שלח (shalach, “send forth”), and names Pharaoh in the same breath. Here Pharaoh’s dispatch sends Joseph out of a pit; there, a sending toward Pharaoh begins the people’s movement out of Egypt.
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