What Does 1 Chronicles 27:21 Mean?
Over the half tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo son of Zechariah. Over Benjamin, Jaasiel son of Abner.
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 the half tribe of Manasseh in Gilead, Iddo the son of Zechariah: of Benjamin, Jaasiel the son of Abner:THE KEY
“Half” is not an incidental fraction: Manasseh is named as a people whose place is defined through division.
THE MEANING
You meet people placed within a web of land, tribe, and family: this half of Manasseh in Gilead, this Benjaminite through his father. The verse makes those relations part of how each person becomes visible.
THE ROOT
חֲצִי
chatsi
GROWS FROM
חצה
to divide, separate into portions
The root beneath “half” carries the action of dividing: Manasseh’s portion is named as part of a divided whole. The verse’s geographic detail therefore also marks how the tribe is apportioned.
ALSO GROWS
chatsah: to divide, split
חָצָה
This verb makes explicit the action carried in the word “half”: a whole is separated into portions.
chetsi: half, one portion of a whole
חֵצִי
This noun shares the root and names a portion as part of a larger whole, as it does for Manasseh here.
זְכַרְיָהוּ
Zekharyahu
GROWS FROM
זכר
to remember, call to mind
“Zechariah” in this verse is Zekharyahu. The name combines the root for remembering with a form of the divine name: “the LORD remembers.” In this roster, that name sits within a line of descent and a specific tribal place.
ALSO GROWS
zakar: to remember, call to mind
זָכַר
This verb gives the remembering seed inside Zechariah’s name.
zikkaron: memorial, remembrance
זִכָּרוֹן
This noun turns the same root into something that keeps what is remembered present.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places people within a larger order by naming their kinship, tribe, or portion.
The lifted one of the children of Joseph, for the branch of the children of Manasseh, Hanniel the son of Ephod.For it is plain that our Lord has sprung out of Judah, a tribe of which Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood.THE THREAD
And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.Exodus uses the same Hebrew word, חֲצִי, for “half” as this verse does for Manasseh’s portion. In both passages, the root marks distinct portions within a whole.
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