What Does 1 Chronicles 16:13 Mean?
O seed of Israel, his servant; children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
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
O ye seed of Israel his servant, ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones.THE KEY
The verse makes chosen belonging a living inheritance: a people is seed that continues, held in service across generations.
THE MEANING
You are addressed through a people whose life continues as seed; belonging reaches you as inheritance rather than a solitary achievement. Service and chosen belonging stand together here, holding shared identity and purpose in one line. Jacob (יַעֲקֹב, Yaʿaqov, “heel-grabber”) and Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל, Yisra’el, “one who strives with God” in the biblical name explanation) keep struggle and belonging in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that belonging begins with individual achievement dissolves here: the verse names you within a continuing people.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or scatter seed; also seed and offspring.
The Hebrew word זֶרַע (zeraʿ, “seed” or “offspring”) belongs to the same root as sowing. The verse pictures belonging as living continuity: what is carried forward can also yield life.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow or scatter seed.
זָרַע
The action behind “seed” makes this line about an ongoing movement of life, not only ancestry.
mazrîaʿ: Yielding seed; seed-bearing.
מַזְרִיעַ
This branch shows how the root can describe life that carries the capacity to continue.
בְּחִירָיו
bechirav
GROWS FROM
בחר
To choose or select.
The verse calls them “his chosen ones,” placing choice within relationship. Their belonging is named as something received within a people, not a status they establish alone.
ALSO GROWS
bachar: To choose or select.
בָּחַר
This verb is the action behind the identity named in the verse.
bachir: Chosen one; choice selection.
בָּחִיר
This form connects being chosen with belonging to what has been selected.
mivchar: Choice; the best or choice part.
מִבְחָר
The root can describe what is selected, deepening the sense that this identity is bestowed.
עַבְדּוֹ
avdo
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work or serve.
The root joins the servant to the work of serving. Israel is named as God’s servant within the same breath as the people’s seed and chosen identity, so service belongs to the line’s shared nature.
ALSO GROWS
ʿavad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
The verb reveals the action carried in the noun “servant.”
ʿavodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch shows the servant’s identity connected to an ongoing work.
ʿeved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The noun names the role assigned to Israel in the verse.
THE PATTERN
God’s people are named as a continuing body whose belonging comes through promise and is carried into service.
But you, Israel, are my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my beloved.The children of the flesh are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as seed.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.THE THREAD
And I will make my covenant stand between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for a covenant of the ages, to be God to you and to your seed after you.The Hebrew זֶרַע (zeraʿ, “seed” or “offspring”) is the shared word in both verses. Genesis names that seed as part of a covenant carried through generations; here, the seed is named as Israel’s servant and Jacob’s chosen ones.
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