What Does 1 Chronicles 1:9 Mean?

And the sons of Cush, Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raama, and Sabteca, and the sons of Raama, Sheba, and Dedan.

1 Chronicles 1:9 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. And the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.

THE KEY

Raamah, whose name carries the sense of thunder, is the hinge where this family line branches into another generation.

THE MEANING

This verse holds a lineage as named branches: Cush’s descendants include Raamah, whose own line continues through Sheba and Dedan. Raamah’s name carries the sound of thunder, making the hinge of the genealogy more than an empty label.

THE ROOT

רַעְמָה

Raʿamah

GROWS FROM

רעם

r-ʿ-m

To thunder, rumble, or roar.

Raamah carries the thunder-root r-ʿ-m, so the name holds a sound of force rather than serving only as a label. The genealogy places Raamah at a branching point, with the line continuing through two named descendants.

ALSO GROWS

raʿam: Thunder; rumbling.

רַעַם

The noun preserves the storm sound at the root of Raamah’s name.

hirʿim: To make thunder; to thunder.

הִרְעִים

This verb makes the same root active, while the verse shows Raamah’s line continuing into another branch.

THE PATTERN

Scripture traces persons and peoples as branches from named origins, linking each line to a wider family story.

And Jokshan brought forth Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.

Genesis 25:3 · SDVDedan, like Raamah here, becomes a point from which another generation is named.

The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:1 · SDVThe verse presents identity through a line of named ancestors, extending across generations.

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.

Acts 17:26 · SDVThe shared human line places every people within a larger origin and branching story.

THE THREAD

Now the sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine. She bore Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. And the sons of Jokshan, Sheba, and Dedan.

1 Chronicles 1:32 · SDV

Sheba and Dedan recur under Jokshan in another branch, as well as here under Raamah. The repeated names make the genealogy’s branching structure visible: those names appear at more than one point in the family map.

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