What Does 1 Chronicles 12:15 Mean?
These are they who crossed the Jordan in the first month, when it was filled over all its banks; and they sent running all who settled in the valleys, toward the sunrise and toward the sunset.
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
These are they that went over Jordan in the first month, when it had overflown all his banks; and they put to flight all them of the valleys, both toward the east, and toward the west.THE KEY
They cross the Jordan at flood stage, so the verse places the way through inside the river’s fullness.
THE MEANING
The way through is present while the Jordan is overflowing its banks. The crossing’s force reaches the valleys on both sides, putting their occupants to flight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A way forward is possible only after the surrounding force has receded.
THE ROOT
עָבְרוּ
ʿāḇərû
GROWS FROM
עבר
To pass over, cross, or pass through.
“crossed” in this verse is ʿāḇərû. The Hebrew verb names movement across a boundary, while עֵבֶר (ʿēber) names what lies beyond or on the other side. The crossing happens with the river at its height, making the passage itself, not the disappearance of the obstacle, the center of the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāḇar: To pass over or cross.
עָבַר
This is the verb behind “went over”: the men move across the Jordan’s boundary.
ʿēber: Beyond, across, or the other side.
עֵבֶר
The root can name both the act of crossing and the far side toward which the crossing moves.
maʿāḇār: A passage, crossing, or ford.
מַעֲבָר
This branch names a place or means of crossing, bringing the root’s movement into the idea of a passage through.
יַרְדֵּן
Yardēn
GROWS FROM
ירד
To descend or go down.
Jordan’s name is connected with יָרַד (yāraḏ), “to descend.” The verse therefore names a flowing descent at flood stage: the crossing meets the river in motion, not as an emptied channel.
ALSO GROWS
yāraḏ: To descend or go down.
יָרַד
This is the root associated with the Jordan’s name and evokes the river’s downward flow.
yerîḏāh: A descent or going down.
יְרִידָה
The noun preserves the root’s sense of a downward course, echoing the movement of the river being crossed.
hôrîḏ: To bring down or cause to descend.
הוֹרִיד
This causative form shows the root describing descent set in motion, matching the verse’s river as an active force.
THE PATTERN
A passage becomes possible while the boundary remains fully present.
And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.And Elijah took his mantle, and rolled it up tight, and struck the waters, and they split this way and that, so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.By trust they stepped across the Red Sea as over dry land, which the Egyptians, making the attempt, were swallowed down.THE THREAD
And the priests who lifted the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood steady on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had finished crossing over Jordan.Both verses use forms of עבר (ʿāḇar), “to cross” or “pass over,” for movement through the Jordan. The shared root makes the crossing itself the central action, while Joshua’s verse shows the whole people completing the passage.
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