What Does 1 Chronicles 2:34 Mean?
Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha.
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
Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha.THE KEY
The line that seems to end with “no sons” already holds its next link in a daughter and an Egyptian servant.
THE MEANING
This verse places an apparent limit beside the people through whom the family can continue: daughters, and Jarha, an Egyptian servant. The next verse shows a daughter and Jarha carrying the line forward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A family line ends when there is no son.
THE ROOT
בָּנוֹת
bānōt
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build, establish.
The Hebrew word for daughters belongs to a word family traditionally connected with building. Beside “sons,” it opens a picture of family as something built through more than the branch this verse says is absent.
ALSO GROWS
ben: A son; a child in the family line.
בֵּן
The word family links sons with the language of building, while this verse names daughters as the household’s living possibility.
banah: To build or establish.
בָּנָה
This root adds the image of a family line being built, rather than ending at the absence of sons.
עֶבֶד
ʿeved
GROWS FROM
עבד
Work, serve.
“a servant” in this verse is ʿeved. The Hebrew word for servant shares its root with words for work and service. Jarha is named by a status tied to service, yet the next verse places him within the continuing family line.
ALSO GROWS
ʿavad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
It makes the labor carried by “servant” audible within the same root.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
The root holds both a person who serves and the work of service together.
מִצְרִי
mitsri
GROWS FROM
מצר
Narrowness, a constricted place.
The word for Egyptian connects Jarha to Mitzrayim, the place of the two narrows. The verse places this figure of constriction within a line that continues through an unexpected family link.
ALSO GROWS
Mitzrayim: Egypt; the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
It carries the passage’s Egyptian identity into the image of constriction.
metzar: A narrow place or strait.
מֵצַר
It makes the root’s image of constriction concrete.
THE PATTERN
A family line can continue through a link that an expected inheritance pattern might overlook.
The daughters of Zelophehad speak what stands firm. You shall surely give them a holding of inheritance among their father's brothers, and you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them.So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.Salmon brought forth Boaz out of Rahab, and Boaz brought forth Obed out of Ruth, and Obed brought forth Jesse.THE THREAD
And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant, as wife; and she brought forth Attai to him.The next verse names the daughter as the link: Sheshan gives her to Jarha, and she bears Attai. What appears here as the end of the male line becomes the beginning of its next named generation.
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