What Does 1 Chronicles 2:44 Mean?
And Shema brought forth Raham, the father of Jorkeam; and Rekem brought forth Shammai.
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 Shema begat Raham, the father of Jorkoam: and Rekem begat Shammai.THE KEY
Beneath the family record is a second line: hearing gives birth to compassion, and life carries forward through named relationships.
THE MEANING
You are not an isolated beginning: life reaches you through generations and continues through what you bring forth. The names hold hearing and compassion inside that movement, giving continuity an inward character as well as a family shape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a life begins with itself and stands apart from those before and after it.
THE ROOT
הוֹלִיד
holid
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
To bear, bring forth, or beget.
“brought forth” in this verse is holid. The verse uses this verb twice, showing two lines actively bringing forth the next generation. English “begat” can sound like a bare link in a list; the Hebrew root holds the act of bringing life forward.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: A child; one brought forth.
יֶלֶד
The child carries the root’s sense of life emerging through another.
toledot: Generations, descendants, or the account of what was brought forth.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch names the larger chain that the verse records person by person.
שְׁמָע
Shema
GROWS FROM
שמע
shama
To hear, listen, or heed.
“Shema” in this verse is Shema. The name carries hearing into the genealogy rather than leaving ancestry as a bare count. Beside Raham, it lets the sequence read as hearing giving rise to compassion.
ALSO GROWS
shama: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
The name preserves the root’s sense of attentive hearing.
shemu'ah: A report or message that has been heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows hearing becoming something carried onward, like the names passed through a lineage.
רָחָם
Raham
GROWS FROM
רחם
raḥam
To show compassion; the root is also linked with the womb.
Raham carries a root that joins compassion with the womb, a place of life-bearing. In this chain, the name places compassion alongside generation and descent.
ALSO GROWS
reḥem: The womb; a life-bearing enclosure.
רֶחֶם
This branch gives Raham’s name a generative resonance beside “begat.”
raḥamim: Compassion.
רַחֲמִים
This branch makes the name’s compassionate quality visible within the line of descendants.
THE PATTERN
Life is carried forward through generation, and the record names the people through whom it passes.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.Abraham brought forth Isaac, and Isaac brought forth Jacob, and Jacob brought forth Judah and his brothers.THE THREAD
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.The same Hebrew root, ילד (yalad, “bring forth” or “beget”), stands behind “begat” here and in Genesis 5:3. There, the verse shows what this act carries forward: a child arrives within a likeness and receives a name.
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