TO SEND — and, in the intensive form, to SEND AWAY, let go, release. It is the exodus refrain: 'SHALACH my people, that they may hold a feast to me' (5:1), the demand repeated to Pharaoh through ten plagues, and the same verb of God's own claim one verse earlier in the story — 'let my SON go' (4:23). Pharaoh's refusal is stated in the same word ('I will not let Israel go,' 5:2), so the whole contest is fought over a single verb: who has the right to send this people where. → first discussed at Exod 5:1