What Does 1 Chronicles 26:7 Mean?
The sons of Shemaiah were Othni, and Rephael, and Obed, Elzabad, whose brethren were men of strength, Elihu, and Semachiah.
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 Shemaiah; Othni, and Rephael, and Obed, Elzabad, whose brethren were strong men, Elihu, and Semachiah.THE KEY
The verse names strength as a shared family capacity, not the possession of one standout.
THE MEANING
You meet strength here as a quality held among brothers: the named individuals remain part of a larger family. The verse places might and kinship in the same frame, so strength belongs to a group rather than a lone figure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that strength belongs only to a solitary standout: the verse attributes it to the brothers together.
THE ROOT
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibborim
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To grow strong, prevail, or prove mighty.
“men of strength” in this verse is gibborim. English can make “strong men” sound like a label for individual toughness. The root also carries the sense of prevailing, and its plural form places that strength across the brothers rather than in one celebrated figure.
ALSO GROWS
gābar: To be mighty or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb presents strength as the capacity to hold ground or prevail, not simply as a physical description.
gever: A man.
גֶּבֶר
The same root can name a person as well as might, weaving strength into the image of the person who stands.
gibbor: A mighty or strong one.
גִּבּוֹר
This singular branch makes clear that the verse uses the plural: strength is attributed to a group of brothers.
רְפָאֵל
Rephael
GROWS FROM
רפא
r-p-ʾ
To heal or restore health.
Rephael joins רָפָא (rapha, “heal”) with אֵל (El, “God”), carrying healing within a list that also names strength. The opening consonants echo רָפָה (raphah, “release” or “let the hands drop”), a distinct root; the sound echoes healing alongside release without making them the same root.
ALSO GROWS
rapha: To heal.
רָפָא
This verb is the healing seed carried in Rephael’s name.
refu’ah: Healing or remedy.
רְפוּאָה
This noun shows the root branching into the restoration that follows healing.
סְמַכְיָהוּ
Semachiah
GROWS FROM
סמך
s-m-k
To lean upon, support, or sustain.
“Semachiah” in this verse is Semachiah. The name carries the sense of being supported, beside the verse’s description of strong brothers. Strength in this list sits alongside the possibility of being upheld.
ALSO GROWS
sāmakh: To support or lean upon.
סָמַךְ
This verb makes support an active relation: one is held up by another.
semikhah: Support or laying on of hands.
סְמִיכָה
This noun carries the root’s image of support being placed upon someone.
THE PATTERN
Strength is held across a community, where distinct people carry a shared capacity.
All these were of the sons of Obededom, they and their sons and their brethren, men of strength, strong for the serving; threescore and two of Obededom.For if they fall, the one raises up the one joined to him. But woe to the one who falls with no second to gird him.But much more those limbs of the body that seem to be weaker are needed.THE THREAD
And he is like a groom coming out of his canopy, and he leaps like a mighty one to run the way.The “strong man” here is גִּבּוֹר (gibbor), from the same גבר (g-b-r) root as the “strong men” in this verse. Psalm 19 pictures that strength in motion; here the same root names strength among brothers.
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