What Does 1 Chronicles 12:40 Mean?
And those near them, even as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on donkeys, and on camels, and on mules, and on cattle, food, flour, pressed figs, clusters of raisins, wine, and oil, and cattle, and flocks in abundance, for there was joy in Israel.
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
Moreover they that were nigh them, even unto Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on asses, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, and meat, meal, cakes of figs, and bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep abundantly: for there was joy in Israel.THE KEY
The people called “near” become near in action: their abundance reaches others, and joy belongs to the whole community.
THE MEANING
Here, joy is not sealed inside one person: food, drink, and livestock move from nearby communities to a people in abundance. The verse holds material need and gladness in the same scene, with provision moving through relationships.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that joy is detached from material need and shared life: here it is spoken over a people receiving food and drink together.
THE ROOT
הַקְּרֹבִים
ha-qerovim
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ב
q-r-b
Be near; approach, draw near.
“near them” in this verse is ha-qerovim. English can make “nigh” sound like mere distance, but קְרֹבִים (qerovim, near ones) belongs to a word family that also describes approaching and drawing near. In this verse, those who are close arrive with provision, so nearness takes the form of movement toward others.
ALSO GROWS
qarav: Approach; draw near.
קָרַב
The root behind “nigh” can describe movement toward someone, so nearness here carries an active, relational sense.
qorban: Drawing near; an offering.
קָרְבָּן
The same root names what is brought near, linking nearness with what reaches a shared center.
שִׂמְחָה
simchah
GROWS FROM
שׂמח
ś-m-ḥ
Rejoice; be glad.
The noun for joy shares its root with the verb “rejoice” and the description “glad.” Here joy is “in Israel,” giving the abundance a communal setting rather than presenting gladness as only an individual feeling.
ALSO GROWS
samach: Rejoice; be glad.
שָׂמַח
This verb shares the root of “joy,” showing the same idea as both a state and an expression.
sameach: Glad; rejoicing.
שָׂמֵחַ
This adjective comes from the same root, connecting the people’s joy with the condition of being glad.
THE PATTERN
When provision is shared across a people, joy becomes visible as a communal condition.
And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates.Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions to them for whom nothing stands ready, for this day is set apart to our Lord. Do not ache, for the joy of the LORD is your stronghold.And they, holding fast day by day with one passion in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, took their food with gladness and singleness of heart.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees of David. I rejoice when they say to me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.Psalm’s שָׂמַחְתִּי (samachti, I rejoiced) and this verse’s שִׂמְחָה (simchah, joy) grow from שמח (ś-m-ḥ, rejoice or be glad). One places that gladness in a person welcomed toward the house of the LORD; the other places joy among a people receiving abundance.
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