What Does 1 Chronicles 4:18 Mean?
And his wife Jehudijah bore Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took.
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 his wife Jehudijah bare Jered the father of Gedor, and Heber the father of Socho, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took.THE KEY
This family line is carried through named women, birth, and a marriage that brings Pharaoh’s daughter into the same household.
THE MEANING
Your picture of inheritance opens beyond a list of fathers: Jehudijah bears three named sons, and Bithiah is named as Pharaoh’s daughter and as the woman Mered takes. Birth and marriage carry this family line across households.
THE ROOT
יָלְדָה
yaldah
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
“bare” in this verse is yaldah. The Hebrew root ילד links bearing with the child brought forth: the act and its new branch share one seed. Here, the line becomes visible through the woman who bears its next named generations.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: A child or offspring.
יֶלֶד
The child is the one brought forth by the root’s act of bearing.
yaldah: A girl or young woman.
יַלְדָּה
This feminine branch shares the root ילד and echoes the verse’s attention to women within the family line.
מֶרֶד
mered
GROWS FROM
מרד
To rebel or resist authority.
Mered’s name carries the consonants of the Hebrew word for rebellion. The verse gives no reason for the name or calls the marriage rebellion, but its meaning resonates beside a daughter of Pharaoh entering this family line.
ALSO GROWS
marad: To rebel or resist.
מָרַד
This verb shares the root consonants of Mered’s name and gives its meaning a living action.
mered: Rebellion or resistance.
מֶרֶד
The noun matches the name itself and preserves its meaning beneath the English rendering.
גְּדוֹר
gedor
GROWS FROM
גדר
To fence, wall in, or enclose.
Gedor’s name echoes the root for an enclosure or fence. The verse pairs the fathers with places, and this name carries the sense of a bounded place within that list.
ALSO GROWS
gadar: To fence in or enclose.
גָּדַר
This verb shares all three consonants with Gedor’s name and expresses the action behind its root.
gader: A fence, wall, or enclosure.
גָּדֵר
This noun shares the root consonants and gives the place-name an image of a bounded space.
THE PATTERN
Scripture keeps family lines visible through the women who bear children and are named within them.
So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.Judah brought forth Perez and Zerah out of Tamar, and Perez brought forth Hezron, and Hezron brought forth Ram.THE THREAD
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.The same Hebrew root ילד appears in Genesis as וַתֵּלֶד (vatteled, “she bore”) and here as יָלְדָה (yaldah, “she bore”). In both verses, birth carries a family into its next named branch.
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