What Does 1 Chronicles 15:7 Mean?
Of the sons of Gershom; Joel the head, and his brothers, a hundred and thirty.
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
Of the sons of Gershom; Joel the chief, and his brethren an hundred and thirty:THE KEY
The name Gershom carries the memory of being a stranger, yet here it belongs to a counted family.
THE MEANING
Belonging takes shape in names, kinship, and a place within the count. Gershom carries the scriptural echo of sojourning, yet the name stands among brothers, with Joel at their head.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A name marked by estrangement means you must remain outside the community.
THE ROOT
גֵּרְשֹׁם
Gershōm
GROWS FROM
גור
gûr
To sojourn or dwell as a stranger.
Exodus links Gershom with גֵּר (gēr), “stranger” or “sojourner,” through the wordplay “I have been a stranger in a strange land.” Here, that name stands within a counted household, so the name’s echo of estrangement is carried inside a place of belonging.
ALSO GROWS
gēr: Stranger; resident alien; sojourner.
גֵּר
This is the word Exodus uses to explain Gershom’s name.
megūrîm: Sojournings; places of residence.
מְגוּרִים
The same root can describe the condition of dwelling in a land as a sojourner.
THE PATTERN
A name marked by sojourning does not prevent belonging; the stranger is given a place among the people.
But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the set-apart ones, and of the household of God.THE THREAD
And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom, the sojourner, for he said, A sojourner I have been in a foreign land.Exodus connects Gershom’s name with the sojourner’s confession, giving the name in this verse an echo of estrangement. Here, that same name belongs to a counted brotherhood.
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