What Does 1 Chronicles 1:13 Mean?
And Canaan brought forth Zidon his firstborn, and Heth,
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
And Canaan begat Zidon his firstborn, and Heth,THE KEY
“Begat” and “generations” grow from the same Hebrew root: a lineage is what a life brings forth and carries forward.
THE MEANING
This verse presents a lineage as something brought forth: Zidon is named as Canaan’s firstborn, followed by Heth. Zidon’s name is linked to the Hebrew root for hunting or catching, so even a name in this line carries an action within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A genealogy is only a list of labels; here, “begat” and “Zidon” carry the force of bringing forth and catching within the names.
THE ROOT
יָלַד
yalad
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, bring forth, or beget.
English “begat” can sound like a single event, but its root also forms words for a child and for generations. The verse’s verb opens into a continuing line of what is brought forth.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child; one who is brought forth.
יֶלֶד
The child is named as the direct branch of the act of bringing forth.
toledot: Generations; descendants, what has been brought forth.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This word makes lineage the continuing record of what the root brings forth.
צִידוֹן
ṣîḏōn
GROWS FROM
צוד
To hunt or catch.
The name Zidon is linked to the Hebrew root for hunting or catching. English presents it as a name alone, while the Hebrew connection lets an action remain inside the name.
ALSO GROWS
ṣayyād: Hunter.
צַיָּד
This branch names the one who performs the catching carried by the root.
ṣayid: Game or hunted food.
צַיִד
This branch names what is caught, extending the root’s action into its result.
THE PATTERN
Lineage continues through what is brought forth, while names preserve the identity carried forward.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.These are the births of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.Abraham brought forth Isaac, and Isaac brought forth Jacob, and Jacob brought forth Judah and his brothers.THE THREAD
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.The same ילד (yalad, “bring forth, beget”) root appears in “begat.” Genesis 5:3 makes the carrying forward visible: what is brought forth bears a likeness and receives a name.
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