What Does 1 Chronicles 2:30 Mean?
And the sons of Nadab; Seled, and Appaim; but Seled died without children.
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 Nadab; Seled, and Appaim: but Seled died without children.THE KEY
A family line can end while the record still carries the name of the one who leaves no children.
THE MEANING
Seled is named among Nadab’s sons, and the record also says he dies without children. His place in the family record remains even where descendants do not continue his line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a person leaves no trace when they have no children: Seled remains named here.
THE ROOT
בָּנִים
banim
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
Build, build up.
“children” in this verse is banim. The Hebrew word for sons is linked with בנה, “build.” The genealogy holds both images together: Seled belongs to a named family, while no descendants continue to build his branch.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son.
בֵּן
This singular form shows the family relationship that appears here in the plural as sons.
banah: Build, build up.
בָּנָה
This verb brings the image of a family line being built through descendants into the verse.
mivneh: Structure, building.
מִבְנֶה
This noun extends the same building image, making a lineage feel like a structure whose branches continue or stop.
THE PATTERN
Scripture can preserve a person’s place in a story while plainly naming the absence of descendants.
But Sarai was uprooted; she had no child.And they had no child, because Elisabeth was unyielding, and they were both advanced in their days.Even to them will I set in my house, and within my walls, a hand and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them a name of the ages that shall not be cut off.THE THREAD
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.The phrase rendered “obtain children” carries the image “be built up,” from בנה, the same root linked with בָּנִים, sons, here. That shared root makes Seled’s childlessness a stopping of the building within his line.
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