What Does 1 Chronicles 3:24 Mean?
And the sons of Elioenai were seven; Hodaviah, and Eliashib, and Pelaiah, and Akkub, and Johanan, and Delaiah, and Anani, seven.
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 the sons of Elioenai were, Hodaiah, and Eliashib, and Pelaiah, and Akkub, and Johanan, and Dalaiah, and Anani, seven.THE KEY
Seven sons are remembered individually, and names like Eliashib and Johanan carry the language of restoration and favor into the family record.
THE MEANING
This line meets you as a record where belonging has names and each person is counted. Eliashib carries the language of return, and Johanan the language of favor, placing restoration and favor within the same family line. Identity travels through the generations in the names people bear.
THE ROOT
אֶלְיָשִׁיב
ʾElyāšîb
GROWS FROM
שוב
sh-w-b
To turn back or return; in the name, God brings back or restores.
Eliashib compresses restoration into a name: God brings back. The root holds both the movement of returning and the possibility of turning away, giving the name a sense of return from what has been lost.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn back, return
שׁוּב
This is the root’s basic motion, echoed in the return carried by Eliashib’s name.
teshuvah: Return, turning
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun gives the same movement a name: restoration is pictured as a return.
meshûvah: Turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
The same root can describe departure from the way, making return the reversal held within the name.
יוֹחָנָן
Yōḥānān
GROWS FROM
חנן
ḥ-n-n
To show favor or be gracious; Johanan means “Yahweh has shown favor.”
Johanan carries a whole confession inside a personal name: Yahweh has shown favor. In this list, favor is part of a person’s inherited identity, not only an abstract quality.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor
חֵן
This noun from the root gives the favor in Johanan a concrete name.
ḥannûn: Gracious
חַנּוּן
This form describes the character of the one who shows the favor carried in Johanan’s name.
THE PATTERN
A name can carry a person’s nature or calling in a compact phrase, making identity legible through the name itself.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,Johanan contains the root חנן (ḥ-n-n), rendered “gracious” here. The name in the genealogy echoes a quality in the LORD’s own self-description, letting one person’s name carry that character in miniature.
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