What Does 1 Chronicles 27:31 Mean?
Over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagerite. All these were chiefs over the gathered goods that belonged to King David.
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 over the flocks was Jaziz the Hagerite. All these were the rulers of the substance which was king David’s.THE KEY
The king’s wealth becomes visible through the person entrusted with its most ordinary, living part.
THE MEANING
Your attention is drawn to a particular corner of the king’s possessions: the flocks have a named overseer. The property belongs to David, while care for it is assigned to Jaziz. Even this brief line makes stewardship concrete: wealth includes living creatures that need someone’s attention.
THE ROOT
רְכוּשׁ
rekhush
GROWS FROM
רכש
Acquire or gain property
“gathered goods” in this verse is rekhush. English “substance” can sound like an undifferentiated mass, but רְכוּשׁ (rekhush, possessions) is connected to רכש (r-k-sh), acquiring and gathering property. The flocks are one living part of those gathered holdings, placed under a named overseer.
ALSO GROWS
rekhush: Possessions or property
רְכוּשׁ
Genesis 12:5 uses this noun for the substance Abram’s household had gathered.
rakash: To acquire or gain
רָכַשׁ
Genesis 31:18 uses this verb for the goods Jacob had acquired, linking possessions with the act of gathering them.
THE PATTERN
A household’s wealth becomes a network of care when particular parts are placed under particular oversight.
Let the Great House do this, and let him set overseers over the land, and take up a fifth part of the land of Egypt in the seven years of fullness.Know well the faces of your flocks, and set your heart upon the herds.As each has received a gift, serve it to one another as good stewards of the many-colored favor of God.THE THREAD
And he led away all his livestock, and all his gathered goods, the livestock of his getting that he had gathered in Padan-aram, to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan.This verse uses the same רכוש (rekhush, possessions) as 1 Chronicles, alongside רכש (rakash, acquire) for the goods Jacob had gained. The flocks under Jaziz’s care are part of this accumulated property, now named within David’s household and assigned an overseer.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us