What Does 1 Chronicles 2:25 Mean?
And the sons of Jerahmeel the firstborn of Hezron were Ram the firstborn, and Bunah, and Oren, and Ozem, and Ahijah.
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 the sons of Jerahmeel the firstborn of Hezron were, Ram the firstborn, and Bunah, and Oren, and Ozem, and Ahijah.THE KEY
This genealogy places a name meaning “May God show compassion” at the start of a line and repeats “firstborn” as that line carries forward.
THE MEANING
Jerahmeel, “May God show compassion,” stands between Hezron and the sons named here. “Firstborn” marks both Jerahmeel’s place in Hezron’s line and Ram’s place in his, carrying that distinction across generations. The names make inheritance more than a sequence: compassion and height are already spoken in the line they carry.
THE ROOT
יְרַחְמְאֵל
Yeraḥmeʾel
GROWS FROM
רחם
To show compassion or tender care.
Jerahmeel’s name carries the root of compassion into the head of this lineage. The same consonants name both compassion and the womb, joining tenderness with the place that shelters life.
ALSO GROWS
raḥamim: Compassion, tender mercies.
רַחֲמִים
This familiar branch makes the name’s compassion explicit: Jerahmeel carries that nature within the genealogy.
reḥem: Womb.
רֶחֶם
The same root gives compassion an intimate, sheltering quality, rather than leaving it as an abstract idea.
בְּכוֹר
bekhor
GROWS FROM
בכר
To be first or bring forth the first.
“Firstborn” appears twice: Jerahmeel is Hezron’s firstborn, and Ram is Jerahmeel’s. The root also names the first yield, so the verse’s repeated marker links precedence with what comes forth and is carried onward.
ALSO GROWS
bekhorah: Birthright.
בְּכֹרָה
The birthright branch shows that being first can carry a place and an inheritance within the family line.
bikkurim: First fruits.
בִּכּוּרִים
First fruits are the earliest yield; the same root connects the firstborn to what a line brings forth.
רָם
Rām
GROWS FROM
רום
To rise, be high, or be exalted.
“Ram” in this verse is Rām. The firstborn son’s name means “high” or “exalted,” giving the list another layer beyond family position. The name carries elevation as part of what this line names forward.
ALSO GROWS
rûm: To rise or be high.
רוּם
This verb shares the name’s root and makes its sense of elevation visible.
mārôm: Height, high place.
מָרוֹם
This noun shows the same root extending from rising to the place or state of height.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets names carry the nature or calling of the person who bears them.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And I will sow her for myself in the earth. I will have compassion on the one who had not received compassion, and I will say to those who were not my people, You are my people, and they will say, You are my God.Jerahmeel carries the רחם (r-ḥ-m, compassion) root heard again in Hosea’s “have mercy.” Hosea makes that compassion relational: those called “not my people” are addressed as “my people,” so a root carried in a name becomes a lived belonging.
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