What Does Leviticus 25:38 Mean?
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.THE KEY
The verse locates freedom in a three-part movement: out of constriction, into gifted ground, and into belonging with God.
THE MEANING
You are brought out of constriction into ground you receive. The same voice that releases you gives you a place and names belonging with God as the movement’s destination. The ground is gift before it is possession.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you must secure your own place once you are free is undone: the movement out ends in ground given and belonging with God.
THE ROOT
הוֹצֵאתִי
hotseti
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
Go out, emerge, come forth.
“brought you out” in this verse is hotseti. This verb makes release a movement across a boundary: you are brought out from a constricted place. The verse joins that movement to receiving ground and belonging with God.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: Go out, emerge.
יָצָא
The basic motion in the verse is an emergence from where you were held.
motsa: Exit, going out; that which proceeds forth.
מוֹצָא
This branch carries the same sense of movement outward, illuminating the verse’s passage from constriction into a place to inhabit.
מִצְרַיִם
mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
Bind, confine, constrict.
The name carries the image of constriction: leaving Egypt is more than crossing a boundary; it is movement out of narrowness. The gift of land becomes the spacious continuation of that release.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricted.
צַר
This branch makes the narrowness within the place-name visible.
tsarah: Distress, trouble.
צָרָה
The word for distress shares the image of being pressed or confined, giving the verse’s departure a release from distress as well as a change of place.
לָתֵת
latet
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
Give, set, place.
“give” in this verse is latet. This root holds giving and placing together: what you receive is also ground set before you. Deliverance here has a destination you can inhabit.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
The root itself joins the act of giving to the act of placing.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows the land as something received, not something the verse describes as self-secured.
THE PATTERN
Release from constriction opens into ground received as a gift and belonging with God.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.And he brought us out from there, so that he might bring us in, to give us the land he swore to our fathers.So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.THE THREAD
And he said to him, I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to take hold of it.The same sequence appears here: being brought out is joined to land given. Release and provision belong to one movement, with God both the one who brings you out and the giver of ground.
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