What Does Joshua 24:6 Mean in the King James?
And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto the sea; and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots and horsemen unto the Red sea.
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
You are already being brought out while the old constriction is still pursuing you.
THE MEANING
You are carried out of what narrowed you, and the pressure can still pursue you all the way to the sea. Deliverance is already in motion before a way through is visible; pursuit has not undone the bringing out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that if the threat is still behind you, you were never truly brought out.
THE ROOT
וָאוֹצִיא
va'otsi
GROWS FROM
יָצָא
yatsa
To go out, emerge; in this form, to bring someone out.
The Hebrew verb carries the sense “I caused you to go out”: the exit is already being enacted. Being brought out and being pursued coexist in this verse.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out, emerge
יָצָא
This is the root beneath “brought out,” naming movement from within to without.
motsa: Outlet, exit; issue or source
מוֹצָא
An outlet is an opening through which what is enclosed can get out, giving the root’s movement a concrete image of release.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind or press in; to be confined or distressed.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim echoes צַר (tsar, narrow) with the dual ending -ayim, evoking a double constriction. The verse sets movement outward against that narrowness, even while pursuit still presses close.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight; a strait
צַר
The narrowness echoed in Mitzrayim makes “brought out” a movement away from constriction.
tsarah: Distress, trouble
צָרָה
The root’s sense of being pressed into distress gives the name’s narrowness an inner as well as a spatial shade.
וַיִּרְדְּפוּ
vayirdefu
GROWS FROM
רָדַף
radaph
To pursue, chase after.
“pursued” in this verse is vayirdefu. The word names active pursuit, not merely the Egyptians’ presence. The pressure follows the people right up to the water, even as the bringing out is already underway.
ALSO GROWS
rodef: A pursuer
רֹדֵף
The pursuer is the one pressing after those moving out.
redifah: Pursuit
רְדִיפָה
The noun keeps the pressure in motion, clarifying that the danger is actively following.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance moves a person outward before the danger and the path have disappeared.
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.THE THREAD
And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers.The same root, יָצָא (yatsa, to go out or bring out), anchors the first movement. This verse reveals its direction: being brought out opens into being brought in, so the sea is a threshold rather than the destination.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us