What Does 1 Chronicles 25:9 Mean?
Now the first stone went out for Asaph to Joseph. The second to Gedaliah, who with his brothers and sons were twelve.
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
Now the first lot came forth for Asaph to Joseph: the second to Gedaliah, who with his brethren and sons were twelve:THE KEY
The lot makes a place visible, while the count shows each name held within a company.
THE MEANING
Joseph receives the first lot in Asaph’s division; the next belongs to Gedaliah, with his brothers and sons, twelve in all. Each place appears within an ordered whole, joining an individual name to a gathered company.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּצֵא
wayyēṣēʾ
GROWS FROM
יָצָא
yatsa
To go out, come out, or emerge.
“went out” in this verse is wayyēṣēʾ. The lot’s result is described as something that comes out into view. The wording gives the assignment the shape of an emergence: a place becomes visible within the order.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi’ah: Going out; an exit.
יְצִיאָה
The same root names a movement from inside to outside, echoing how the lot’s result becomes apparent.
yotse: One who goes out or comes forth.
יוֹצֵא
This form keeps the sense of emergence active: what comes out is now identifiable.
אָסָף
Asaph
GROWS FROM
אָסַף
asaph
To gather or collect.
Asaph’s name carries the sense of gathering. In this verse, Joseph’s place appears within Asaph’s division, while Gedaliah’s place is counted with his brothers and sons: the roster holds names together in companies.
ALSO GROWS
asaph: To gather or collect.
אָסַף
The verb gives the name its sense of gathering, fitting the verse’s grouped divisions.
asiph: Ingathering; harvest.
אָסִיף
This noun from the same root makes gathering a named season or event, resonating with the roster’s collected company.
רִאשׁוֹן
rishon
GROWS FROM
רֹאשׁ
rosh
Head; beginning; chief.
“First” grows from the word for “head,” so it marks the head of a sequence. Here the first place is established by the lot’s order; the verse does not say it is a measure of greater worth.
ALSO GROWS
rosh: Head; chief.
רֹאשׁ
The root reveals the image underneath “first”: the leading point of an ordered sequence.
reshit: Beginning; first part or first fruits.
רֵאשִׁית
This branch carries the same beginning-sense, showing how “first” can mark sequence rather than superiority.
THE PATTERN
A lot turns an allocation into a visible place within a shared order.
The lot is thrown into the lap, but all its judgment is from the LORD.Only by the cast stones shall the land be divided. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.And they cast their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven sent ones.THE THREAD
The lot is thrown into the lap, but all its judgment is from the LORD.Both verses use the Hebrew word גּוֹרָל (goral), “lot.” Here it assigns Joseph and Gedaliah to divisions; Proverbs holds the casting and its outcome together under the LORD’s ordering.
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