What Does 1 Chronicles 26:9 Mean?
And Meshelemiah had sons and brethren, men of strength, eighteen.
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
And Meshelemiah had sons and brethren, strong men, eighteen.THE KEY
Here “strong” is חַיִל (chayil, strength and capacity), the same word that can name an army, wealth, or a woman’s valor, making strength a capacity shared across the family.
THE MEANING
Strength appears within kinship: sons and brothers are named together as people of capacity. The count of eighteen makes that strength concrete and collective, rather than leaving it as an abstract quality in one person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the idea that strength belongs only to a solitary hero: here it is shared among sons and brothers.
THE ROOT
חַיִל
chayil
GROWS FROM
חיל
ḥ-y-l
Force, strength, or capacity; the word can also name an army or wealth.
“men of strength” in this verse is chayil. English makes this sound like a trait of these men alone, while חַיִל (chayil, strength/capacity) carries a wider sense of force and resources. The same word can describe a host or a woman’s valor, so the strength here is a kind of capacity, not simply physical toughness.
ALSO GROWS
benei chayil: Sons of strength or valor; the phrase used here for the strong men.
בְּנֵי־חַיִל
The verse names capability among the sons and brothers as a shared quality.
eshet chayil: A woman of strength or valor, traditionally rendered “a virtuous woman.”
אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל
The same word names a woman’s strength, extending חַיִל beyond the verse’s group of men.
מְשֶׁלֶמְיָהוּ
Meshelemiah
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Be whole or complete; make good or repay.
The name Meshelemiah is understood as “Yahweh repays” or “Yahweh recompenses,” carrying the שׁלם (sh-l-m, wholeness and making good) root. English presents a name, while its Hebrew form keeps audible a link between wholeness and recompense.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness or peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch shows the root’s sense of completeness.
shillem: Repaid or recompensed.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch reflects the making-good sense carried in Meshelemiah’s name.
THE PATTERN
Strength takes form within a connected people, where belonging and mutual support are part of the capacity.
Two are better than one, because they have good wages for their toil.A Song of degrees of David. Look, how good and how sweet it is for brothers to settle also together!For as the body is one, and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, though many, are one body, so also is the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.The same חַיִל (chayil, strength/capacity) translated “strong” here appears in Proverbs’ “virtuous woman.” One word names the capacity of Meshelemiah’s sons and brothers and the strength of this woman, though English gives it different labels.
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