What Does 1 Chronicles 3:8 Mean?
And Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine.
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 Elishama, and Eliada, and Eliphelet, nine.THE KEY
A genealogy that looks like a count also declares: God hears, God knows, and God is deliverance.
THE MEANING
Elishama, Eliada, and Eliphelet carry a living claim into the present: God hears, God knows, and escape is held in God’s nature. Their names keep these truths legible whenever this line is read.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a cry goes unheard, a person remains unknown, and confinement is final.
THE ROOT
אֱלִישָׁמָע
ʾĔlîšāmāʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed.
Elishama joins El, “God,” to שמע (shamaʿ, “hear”), making the name a declaration that God has heard. The same root appears in Ishmael, so the name carries a connection that English spelling conceals.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form shares the name’s root and shows hearing as attentive response.
shemuʿah: A report; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows how hearing can become a message carried onward, as the name carries its testimony through the line.
אֶלְיָדָע
ʾElyādāʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
Know, recognize, perceive.
Eliada joins El, “God,” to ידע (yadaʿ, “know”). The name points toward knowing by encounter, not merely possessing information.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: Know, recognize, perceive by encounter.
יָדַע
This is the verb at the heart of Eliada, giving the name its claim that God knows.
daʿat: Knowing, knowledge, perception.
דַּעַת
This noun grows from the same root and shows knowing as something held and present.
אֱלִיפֶלֶט
ʾĔlîpelet
GROWS FROM
פלט
p-l-ṭ
Escape, slip away, bring out of danger.
Eliphelet joins El, “God,” to a word for escape or deliverance. The name carries the possibility of getting free inside a family list that could otherwise read as only a count.
ALSO GROWS
palat: Escape; bring out of danger.
פָּלַט
This verb shares the name’s root and gives its deliverance meaning a concrete shape.
palit: A survivor; one who escapes.
פָּלִיט
This branch names the one who gets free, extending the root’s movement from escape to the person who emerges.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, a name can carry the truth or purpose the verse declares.
And the messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.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 messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.Ishmael (יִשְׁמָעֵאל, Yishmaʿel, “God hears”) shares the root שמע (sh-m-ʿ, “hear”) with Elishama. Genesis makes the hearing inside this genealogy explicit: the LORD hears affliction.
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