What Does 1 Chronicles 4:1 Mean?
The sons of Judah were Pharez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal.
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
The sons of Judah; Pharez, Hezron, and Carmi, and Hur, and Shobal.THE KEY
The name Pharez means “breach,” so this lineage carries a breaking-through within its very list of names.
THE MEANING
This verse traces Judah’s line through named people, with Pharez at its beginning. His name means “breach,” keeping the image of breaking through inside the lineage as it continues.
THE ROOT
פֶּרֶץ
Pereṣ
GROWS FROM
פרץ
To break through, burst forth, or make an opening
English gives Pharez as a personal name, while the Hebrew preserves the image of breaking through. The related verb means “break through,” and the noun means “breach,” so the name carries an opening into this family line.
ALSO GROWS
pāraṣ: To break through or burst forth
פָּרַץ
This verb makes the movement inside Pharez’s name audible: someone breaks through.
pōrēṣ: Breaker; one who breaks through
פֹּרֵץ
Micah uses this form for the one who opens a way through, linking Pharez’s name to passage beyond a breach.
THE PATTERN
A breach can become both an opening into a new passage and a name carried forward through a lineage.
And it came to be, as he drew back his hand, and behold, his brother came out, and she said, How have you broken through? Let this breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Pharez, the breach.The one who breaks through goes up before them. They break through, pass through the gate, and go out through it. Their king passes before them, and the LORD is at their head.Judah brought forth Perez and Zerah out of Tamar, and Perez brought forth Hezron, and Hezron brought forth Ram.THE THREAD
And it came to be, as he drew back his hand, and behold, his brother came out, and she said, How have you broken through? Let this breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Pharez, the breach.Genesis names Pharez at the moment of breaking through, using the same root that gives the name its meaning. Here in Chronicles, that breach is no longer only an event: it is carried forward as a name within Judah’s lineage.
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