What Does 1 Chronicles 23:10 Mean?
And the sons of Shimei were Jahath, Zina, and Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei.
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 Shimei were, Jahath, Zina, and Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei.THE KEY
A name rooted in hearing heads a line of four distinct names: one nature can be carried forward without erasing difference.
THE MEANING
The verse holds shared origin and individual identity together: four sons belong to one family line, and each is named. The names keep each person visible within the larger story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Shared ancestry makes its members interchangeable.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build; the Hebrew word for sons is traditionally connected with building up a household.
English makes “sons” sound only like a family label; the Hebrew word echoes the language of building. The four sons form a named continuation of the family line, giving this genealogy the shape of a household being built.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build.
בָּנָה
Genesis 30:3 uses this verb in a context of receiving children: “that I may also have children by her.” The wordplay joins descendants with the building of a household.
binyan: A building or structure.
בִּנְיָן
This related word makes the architectural echo visible: the genealogy presents descendants as part of a continuing structure.
שִׁמְעִי
Shimʿi
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, or heed; the name is associated with hearing, often understood as “heard.”
“Shimei” in this verse is Shimʿi. The name carries the sense of hearing into the line that follows it. Its sound links this family record to a Hebrew word for hearing that can mean more than receiving sound: it can mean attending and responding.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen.
שְׁמַע
The same root opens Deuteronomy’s call to Israel, where hearing is the people’s orientation toward God.
shemuʿah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes hearing something that can be carried and repeated, as a named family line is carried through a record.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents descendants as a continuing family line whose members remain individually named.
And she said, Look, my maidservant Bilhah. Go in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I too may be built up through her.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Shimei’s name is associated with שמע (sh-m-ʿ), the Hebrew root for hearing, which appears here in “Hear.” The shared root lets the name at the head of this family line resonate with hearing as an orientation that gathers a people around the One.
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