What Does 1 Chronicles 1:35 Mean?
The sons of Esau, Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah.
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 sons of Esau; Eliphaz, Reuel, and Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “sons” carries a building resonance: lineage continues as a structure made of distinct names.
THE MEANING
This verse holds identity as both inherited and particular: each son belongs to Esau’s line, yet each is named separately. The list presents a life as connected to a larger structure, not as an isolated point.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person is self-contained: every name here belongs to a line of relation.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
בנה (bānāh) means to build or establish; Hebrew son-language is associated with the building of a continuing family line.
The verse’s בְּנֵי (bənê, sons) is tied to בנה (bānāh, build): family language carries the image of a structure continuing across generations. English preserves the genealogy but hides that building resonance, so the list reads as lineage and architecture at once.
ALSO GROWS
bānāh: To build or construct.
בָּנָה
This verb gives the root’s basic sense: the sons are named within a family structure that continues.
mivneh: A structure or form.
מִבְנֶה
This noun makes the building resonance visible: descendants form a structure across generations.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents identity as a line of relation, carried forward through descendants who are individually named.
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.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.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 Hebrew בְּנֵי (bənê, sons) here is associated with בנה (bānāh, build), and Genesis makes that continuity visible in a son bearing his father’s likeness. Together, the verses show a family line being built through both resemblance and distinct names.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us