What Does 1 Chronicles 23:23 Mean?
The sons of Mushi were Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.
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
The sons of Mushi; Mahli, and Eder, and Jeremoth, three.THE KEY
The verse counts three, yet names each one, so belonging is not reduced to a number.
THE MEANING
This verse places Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth within Mushi’s family line and keeps the count visible: three. Each name remains distinct within that belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a family line matters only as a total: the verse records both the number and the names.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bene
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
to build
בְּנֵי (bene, sons of) belongs to the word family of בָּנָה (banah, build). That connection gives descent the image of a structure taking shape across generations: these are named lives within a continuing family.
ALSO GROWS
banah: to build
בָּנָה
This verb supplies the building image carried by the word family.
binyan: building, structure
בִּנְיָן
This related noun makes the image concrete: a family line can be seen as a structure made of connected lives.
יְרֵמוֹת
Jeremoth
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
to be high, to rise
The name יְרֵמוֹת (Jeremoth) belongs to the רום (rum, rise or be high) word family and carries the sense of heights or elevation. English keeps the name’s sound but not that image, so the list holds more than a count: it holds a name with its own meaning.
ALSO GROWS
ram: high, lofty
רָם
This adjective shows the height carried by the name’s root.
herim: raised, lifted up
הֵרִים
This verb shows the root in motion: what rises can also be raised.
THE PATTERN
Scripture keeps belonging visible by naming the people who carry a family or community forward.
These are the births of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.Abraham brought forth Isaac, and Isaac brought forth Jacob, and Jacob brought forth Judah and his brothers.And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room, where they were staying, Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Burning One, and Judas the brother of James.THE THREAD
These are the births of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.Genesis 10:1 begins with the same word, “sons,” and names Noah’s three sons before describing the generations that follow. That shared wording places this count of three within a continuing line of named descendants.
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