What Does Psalm 105:20 Mean?
The king sent and loosened him, ruler of peoples, and let him out into the open.
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
The king sent and loosed him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.THE KEY
The Hebrew pairs release with opening: freedom is not just being allowed out, but having what is shut become open again.
THE MEANING
What confines you is not the whole truth of your present: this verse holds the possibility of being opened and sent forth in the same movement. Release comes as more than permission; the closed way itself can open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a closed condition is final, or that release changes only what you are allowed to do and not what has opened around you.
THE ROOT
שָׁלַח
shālaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
š-l-ḥ
To send, send forth, or release.
Here, sending and releasing are one movement: the person is sent out of confinement. The same root appears in the command “Let my people go,” so release is already held inside the word for sending.
ALSO GROWS
shallach: Send away; release.
שַׁלַּח
This is the imperative behind “Let my people go,” where sending out is itself release.
shillēaḥ: Send forth or send away.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This form makes the root’s movement outward explicit: what is held can be sent away from its confinement.
וַיְפַתְּחֵהוּ
wayfatteḥēhû
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
To open.
“let him out into the open” in this verse is wayfatteḥēhû. The Hebrew verb literally pictures the ruler opening him; the KJV gives the result as “let him go free.” Freedom is shown as more than permission to leave: what was shut is opened. The root also gives Hebrew words for an opening and for something open.
ALSO GROWS
petaḥ: An opening or doorway.
פֶּתַח
A doorway is the open passage through what had been closed.
pātūaḥ: Open.
פָּתוּחַ
This form names the opened condition that the verse depicts as freedom.
THE PATTERN
Release is pictured as sending the confined outward and opening the way itself.
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.“Let my people go” uses שָׁלַח (shālaḥ), meaning “send” or “release,” the same root as “sent” in Psalm 105:20. In both verses, sending someone out is the act of release, the Hebrew root holds together what English renders as separate ideas.
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