What Does 1 Chronicles 4:2 Mean?
And Reaiah the son of Shobal begat Jahath, and Jahath begat Ahumai and Lahad. These are the families of the Zorathites.
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 Reaiah the son of Shobal begat Jahath; and Jahath begat Ahumai, and Lahad. These are the families of the Zorathites.THE KEY
The repeated “begat” makes continuity the subject: this family appears as a chain of named lives.
THE MEANING
Each person is placed in a relationship: Reaiah is linked to Shobal, Jahath to Reaiah, and Ahumai and Lahad to Jahath; together they are named as the families of the Zorathites. The repeated begetting makes continuity visible through people and their connections.
THE ROOT
הוֹלִיד
holid
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To bear, give birth, or beget.
The Hebrew verb comes from ילד, the root of birth and begetting. English repeats “begat” as a genealogical formula; the root keeps the act of bringing forth audible in every link of the family line.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To give birth or beget.
יָלַד
It is the basic verb beneath “begat,” making each named link an act of bringing forth.
yeled: Child or boy.
יֶלֶד
The child is another branch of the same birth-root, showing how the verb and the person brought forth belong to one word-family.
toledot: Generations or descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This word carries the same birth-root into the idea of a family’s unfolding generations.
רְאָיָה
Re'ayah
GROWS FROM
ראה
r-'-h
To see, look, or perceive.
Reaiah is commonly understood as “Yah has seen” or “vision of Yah.” The genealogy opens with a name carrying the language of seeing, then makes the line visible through named relationships.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ah: To see or perceive.
רָאָה
This is the seeing-root associated with Reaiah’s name.
mar'eh: A sight, appearance, or vision.
מַרְאֶה
This branch shows how the root of seeing can also name what is seen.
THE PATTERN
A line of generations becomes visible through named relationships and acts of begetting.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.And Obed brought forth Jesse, and Jesse brought forth David.Abraham brought forth Isaac, and Isaac brought forth Jacob, and Jacob brought forth Judah and his brothers.THE THREAD
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.Genesis 5:3 uses the same ילד (yalad, “to give birth or beget”) root carried by “begat” here. There, the line continues through a son named Seth; here, it unfolds through Jahath, Ahumai, and Lahad into the families of the Zorathites.
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