What Does 1 Chronicles 2:49 Mean?
She brought forth also Shaaph, the father of Madmannah, and Sheva, the father of Machbenah, and the father of Gibea; and the daughter of Caleb was Achsah.
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
She bare also Shaaph the father of Madmannah, Sheva the father of Machbenah, and the father of Gibea: and the daughter of Caleb was Achsah.THE KEY
The genealogy opens with a woman bearing children and closes by preserving Caleb’s daughter Achsah by name.
THE MEANING
This verse places a woman’s bearing at the start of the line and keeps Caleb’s daughter visible by name at its end. The names carry kinship outward through generations, while the repeated relationships show how each life is held within a family line. Achsah’s name also carries the concrete image of an ankle ornament.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that women are absent from this lineage dissolves here: a woman’s bearing begins the verse, and Caleb’s daughter is named at its close.
THE ROOT
וַתֵּלֶד
wattēled
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, bring forth.
The same root names the act of bearing, the child brought forth, and the generations that follow. The genealogy’s line grows from the same word-family as the birth that opens it.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The child is the life brought forth by the bearing named in this verse.
toledot: Generations, descendants, or genealogies.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch names the continuing line that the verse records.
עַכְסָה
ʿAksah
GROWS FROM
עכס
Associated with an anklet or ankle ornament.
Achsah is commonly associated with an ankle ornament, giving the daughter named here a concrete name-nature. That name remains attached to her in the verse, and the later account places her at the center of a request for land and springs.
ALSO GROWS
ʿekhes: An anklet or ankle ornament.
עֶכֶס
This singular form is associated with the concrete image carried by Achsah’s name.
ʿăkāsîm: Anklets or ankle ornaments.
עֲכָסִים
The plural form preserves the same image in a biblical word from this root.
THE PATTERN
Birth and names make a family line visible as it continues through generations.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.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.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And she answered, Give me a blessing. For you have given me a dry land; give me also springs and waters. And he gave her the springs above, and the springs beneath.Joshua names Achsah as Caleb’s daughter and shows her asking for springs to go with her land. That account opens this verse’s final name into a living scene: Achsah stands within the genealogy as a speaker whose request shapes what she receives.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us