What Does 1 Chronicles 1:5 Mean?
The sons of Japheth, Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.
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 Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras.THE KEY
Japheth’s name carries a widening that this genealogy gives form: one line opens into seven.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with distinct names gathered into a family line. Each listed name remains connected by descent from Japheth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The names of peoples are not isolated beginnings; this line locates them in a shared descent.
THE ROOT
יֶפֶת
Yepheth
GROWS FROM
פתה
p-t-h
Open wide; in the wordplay with Japheth, enlarge.
Genesis 9:27 pairs Japheth’s name with a verb meaning “may he enlarge,” linking the name to widening. Here, that widening takes visible form as one line branches into seven named descendants.
ALSO GROWS
yapht: May he enlarge or open wide
יַפְתְּ
This verb in Genesis 9:27 echoes Japheth’s name and gives the name its widening sense.
pātâ: To open wide, entice, or persuade
פָּתָה
The root’s range holds both openness and the power to draw someone outward, deepening the widening echoed in Japheth’s name.
THE PATTERN
Human plurality appears as distinct peoples branching within a shared human story.
From these were the coastlands of the nations parted in their lands, each by his tongue, by their families, in their nations.When the One Above allotted the nations their inheritance, when he split apart the sons of Adam, he stationed the borders of the peoples by the count of the children of Israel.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
Let God widen the wide one, Japheth, and let him settle in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.Genesis pairs Japheth’s name with a form meaning “may he enlarge,” making expansion echo inside the name. The seven descendants here give that echo a shape: one line opening into many names.
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