What Does 1 Chronicles 24:28 Mean?
Of Mahli came Eleazar, who had no sons.
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
Of Mahli came Eleazar, who had no sons.THE KEY
The absence of sons is literal, but the family line continues through the daughters named in the related account.
THE MEANING
A family line can look closed when it lacks the expected heir, yet continuity can pass through daughters and kinship. The verse names what is absent without making that absence the whole story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that no sons means no descendants: the related account names Eleazar’s daughters and their marriage into the family.
THE ROOT
בָּנִים
banim
GROWS FROM
בנה
build, build up
בָּנִים (banim, sons) is linked with בנה (banah, build), joining descent with the language of building a family. Here the missing sons mark one absent form of continuation; the related account shows the line continuing through daughters.
ALSO GROWS
ben: son
בֵּן
This singular form shares the family-building connection carried by the plural in the verse.
banah: to build
בָּנָה
The verb makes the connection visible: family continuity can be understood through what is built across generations.
אֶלְעָזָר
ʾElʿazar
GROWS FROM
עזר
help, aid
Eleazar joins אֵל (El, God) with עָזַר (ʿazar, help), carrying help in the name of the person whose line is described by an absence. The name holds that note alongside the daughters who continue the family line.
ALSO GROWS
ʿezer: help, aid
עֵזֶר
This noun shares the name’s root and makes help part of its substance.
ʿazar: to help, support
עָזַר
This verb keeps the root active: help is something that acts.
THE PATTERN
A family line can continue through daughters, inheritance, and kinship when a direct male heir is absent.
The daughters of Zelophehad speak what stands firm. You shall surely give them a holding of inheritance among their father's brothers, and you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them.So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.Salmon brought forth Boaz out of Rahab, and Boaz brought forth Obed out of Ruth, and Obed brought forth Jesse.THE THREAD
And Eleazar died and had no sons, but daughters, and their brothers, the sons of Kish, took them as wives.The shared word בָּנִים (banim, sons) names exactly what Eleazar lacks; the verse then names his daughters and their kin, the sons of Kish. “No sons” does not mean no descendants or no continuation.
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