What Does 1 Chronicles 15:9 Mean?
Of the sons of Hebron; Eliel the head, and his brothers, eighty.
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 Hebron; Eliel the chief, and his brethren fourscore:THE KEY
Hebron (חֶבְרוֹן, Ḥevron, “joining”) names the chief within association, placing leadership inside a people.
THE MEANING
You see a chief named alongside his brethren, with the whole company counted around him. Hebron (חֶבְרוֹן, Ḥevron, “association or joining”) carries connection in its name, while Eliel (אֱלִיאֵל, ʾEliʾel, “my God is God”) names the one leading. The verse holds leadership and belonging together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that leadership requires separation from the people: the chief is named alongside his brethren.
THE ROOT
חֶבְרוֹן
Ḥevron
GROWS FROM
חבר
ḥ-b-r
To join or associate.
Hebron (חֶבְרוֹן, Ḥevron, “association or joining”) carries connection in its name. That makes the chief’s place beside his brethren part of the verse’s structure: authority is attached to a company, not isolated from it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥābar: To join or associate.
חָבַר
The verb gives the joining held in Hebron’s name an active form.
ḥāver: Companion or associate.
חָבֵר
This branch names a person joined to others, echoing the company gathered around the chief.
THE PATTERN
Scripture locates leadership within a community, where the leader remains related to those gathered around them.
Moreover, you shall look out from all the people for men of strength, who stand in awe of God, men of truth, who hate plunder; and set such over them as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.And with you there shall be a man of every staff; each one a head of the house of his fathers.But it is not so among you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant.THE THREAD
All these joined together in the valley of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea.Hebron (חֶבְרוֹן, Ḥevron, “association or joining”) and “were joined” (חָבְרוּ, ḥāberu, “joined together”) grow from the root חבר (ḥ-b-r), “to join.” Here the same root describes kings forming an alliance, showing that joining names a connection without deciding what that group will do.
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