What Does 1 Chronicles 3:9 Mean?
These were all the sons of David, apart from the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister.
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
These were all the sons of David, beside the sons of the concubines, and Tamar their sister.THE KEY
The root beneath “sons” also means “build,” so this genealogy shows a family house taking shape through branches the main list holds apart.
THE MEANING
A family record can hold connection and separation at once: the sons form one list, the concubines’ sons are set beside it, and Tamar is named as their sister. The verse preserves a wider household while giving its members different places in the record.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A person outside the principal line is not therefore outside the family: the verse still identifies the concubines’ sons as David’s and Tamar as their sister.
THE ROOT
בָּנִים
banim
GROWS FROM
בנה
בנה (banah) means “build”; this root family connects ben, “son,” with the building of a household.
The Hebrew word for “sons” belongs to the same root family as “build.” In a verse that sorts David’s children into distinct circles, the family is still presented as a house taking shape through every branch named.
ALSO GROWS
banah: to build
בָּנָה
The same consonants name the making of a house; sons carry the household forward.
binyan: building, structure
בִּנְיָן
A built structure echoes the family-house sense held in the word for son.
מִלְּבַד
milvad
GROWS FROM
בדד
בדד (badad) means to be alone, separate, or apart.
“apart from” in this verse is milvad. The Hebrew behind “beside” carries a sense of separation as well as addition. It names the concubines’ sons within David’s family while keeping their place distinct from the main roll, then names Tamar through kinship.
ALSO GROWS
levad: alone, apart from
לְבַד
This form makes the separating sense of “beside” audible.
badad: alone, solitary
בָּדָד
The root’s sense of being apart illuminates the distinct place marked for these sons.
תָּמָר
Tamar
GROWS FROM
תמר
תָּמָר (tamar) means “date palm”; the name carries this plant image.
Tamar’s name is also the Hebrew word for a date palm, while the sentence gives her a place through kinship: “their sister.” Her proper name remains visible instead of being absorbed into the count of sons.
ALSO GROWS
temarim: palm trees
תְּמָרִים
This plural keeps the same palm image carried by Tamar’s name.
tomer: palm tree, palm trunk
תֹּמֶר
This related form preserves the palm image in another word from the same family.
THE PATTERN
Names and kinship ties carry family identity across generations.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a shining sister, whose name was Tamar, and Amnon the son of David loved her.Here Tamar is named as David’s daughter and the sons’ sister; Samuel repeats her name at the entrance to the account of Amnon’s sexual assault of her. The shared name shows the genealogy’s brief kinship note holding a life the list cannot unfold.
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