What Does 1 Chronicles 16:42 Mean?
And with them Heman and Jeduthun, with trumpets and cymbals for those who cause the sound to be heard, and with instruments of God. And the sons of Jeduthun were gatekeepers.
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
And with them Heman and Jeduthun with trumpets and cymbals for those that should make a sound, and with musical instruments of God. And the sons of Jeduthun were porters.THE KEY
Hebrew calls the musicians those who cause hearing, then places the gatekeepers beside them: worship holds both audible praise and quiet threshold-keeping.
THE MEANING
The verse places those who make sound heard and those who keep the gate within one service. The reader’s place in worship may be audible or nearly unseen; both can belong to the same ordered life before God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that only visible or audible work matters: it places the gatekeepers alongside the musicians as part of the same service.
THE ROOT
לְמַשְׁמִיעִים
le-mashmiʿim
GROWS FROM
שמע
Hear, listen; in the Hiphil form here, cause to hear or make heard.
“cause the sound to be heard” in this verse is le-mashmiʿim. The phrase translated as those who make a sound uses a causative form of שמע: they are those who cause hearing. The same root names hearing itself and a report that is heard, so the music is not merely noise; it makes something perceptible.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen.
שָׁמַע
The basic verb names the hearing that the musicians’ work brings about.
shemuʿah: A report, tidings; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
A report carries content into another person’s hearing, echoing the verse’s cause-to-hear form.
hishmiaʿ: Make heard, announce.
הִשְׁמִיעַ
This Hiphil form shares the verse’s causative sense: sound is made available to listeners.
לַשָּׁעַר
la-shaʿar
GROWS FROM
שער
Gate, entrance.
“gatekeepers” in this verse is la-shaʿar. The Hebrew phrase places Jeduthun’s sons at the gate; the KJV renders their role as porters. The verse pairs those who make sound heard with those who hold the threshold, giving both audible and quiet work a place in the service.
ALSO GROWS
shaʿar: Gate, entrance.
שַׁעַר
This is the singular gate at which Jeduthun’s sons serve.
sheʿarim: Gates.
שְׁעָרִים
The plural shows the same root naming the thresholds that mark entrances and exits.
ha-shoʿarim: The gatekeepers.
הַשֹּׁעֲרִים
This related form names the people who keep the gates, making explicit the role represented by the verse’s phrase.
THE PATTERN
A worshiping community holds together when audible praise and less visible keeping of the threshold both count as service.
And both the singers and the porters kept the watch of their God, and the watch of the cleansing, according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son.Praise him with the thrust of the ram's horn; praise him with the harp and the lyre.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.THE THREAD
And it came to be, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one voice heard in praising and in extending the hands to the LORD; and when they lifted their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of song, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; his faithful love is for the ages. Then the house was filled with a cloud, the house of the LORD.The phrase make one sound to be heard uses the same שמע root as those who should make a sound in this verse. Here that hearing-root gathers trumpeters and singers into one shared act, showing what their sound makes possible.
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