What Does 1 Chronicles 24:18 Mean?
The three and twentieth to Delaiah, the four and twentieth to Maaziah.
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 three and twentieth to Delaiah, the four and twentieth to Maaziah.THE KEY
The final two places in the roster carry names of being drawn up and of strength, so the sequence closes on uplift and support.
THE MEANING
This line holds its order down to the final two places: the twenty-third is Delaiah, and the twenty-fourth is Maaziah. Their names carry the images of being drawn up and of strength, so the numbered close remains personal rather than anonymous.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the last place is a nameless afterthought gives way here to a numbered place that still bears a name.
THE ROOT
דְּלָיָהוּ
Dəlāyāhû
GROWS FROM
דלה
Draw up, draw out; the name means “Yah has drawn up.”
Delaiah’s name carries the root for drawing something up, a connection English leaves hidden. The sequence’s closing name therefore holds an image of being raised, not merely a place in a list.
ALSO GROWS
dālāh: To draw up or draw out.
דָּלָה
This is the verb behind Delaiah’s name, making the name itself an image of being drawn up.
dəlî: A bucket or vessel for drawing water.
דְּלִי
The drawing vessel grows from the same root, showing the concrete action beneath the name’s image.
מַעֲזְיָהוּ
Maʿazyāhû
GROWS FROM
עזז
Be strong; the name is understood as “Yah is strength.”
Maaziah’s name brings strength into the roster’s final place. The root also forms words for a stronghold, so strength can appear as refuge as well as force.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoz: Strength or might.
עֹז
This noun gives the name its central image of strength.
maʿoz: Stronghold or refuge.
מָעוֹז
The same root’s strength can also be a place of shelter, adding support to the roster’s closing image.
THE PATTERN
An ordered place can be distinct without becoming anonymous: the sequence assigns positions and preserves the names attached to them.
Thus were they divided by cast stones, one with another, for the princes of the set-apart place and the princes of God were of the sons of Eleazar and of the sons of Ithamar.But now God has set the limbs, each one of them, in the body, as he willed.THE THREAD
A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David. I lift you high, O LORD, for you have drawn me up, and have not made my foes rejoice over me.Delaiah contains the root דלה, the same verb rendered “lifted me up” in this verse. The shared root lets the name’s image of being drawn up meet the psalm’s explicit image of being lifted.
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