What Does 1 Chronicles 4:22 Mean?
And Jokim, and the men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who had the dominion in Moab, and Jashubilehem. And these are ancient things.
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 Jokim, and the men of Chozeba, and Joash, and Saraph, who had the dominion in Moab, and Jashubi-lehem. And these are ancient things.THE KEY
The word rendered “dominion” comes from בעל (baʿal), whose root gathers mastery, ownership, and husbandhood.
THE MEANING
You encounter a line where names, rule, and age remain bound together; the text itself calls these matters ancient. The Hebrew behind “had dominion” carries mastery and ownership, making rule a form of holding something as one’s own. Even this terse list preserves the nature of that holding.
THE ROOT
בָּעֲלוּ
baʿalu
GROWS FROM
בעל
b-ʿ-l
To own, rule, or be master; the related noun also means husband.
The verb belongs to the root בעל, whose noun can name a master, owner, or husband. “Dominion” therefore carries possession and relationship together: power is described as holding over Moab.
ALSO GROWS
baʿal: Master, owner, husband
בַּעַל
These meanings show how the verse’s word for rule shares a root with both ownership and marriage.
beʿalim: Owners, masters
בְּעָלִים
The plural makes the root’s sense of possession explicit, deepening the force of “had dominion.”
עַתִּיקִים
ʿattiqim
GROWS FROM
עתק
ʿ-t-q
To move onward, pass away, or advance; the derived adjective means old or ancient.
The word translated “ancient” belongs to a root associated with movement onward or passing away. The verse presents these names as what has travelled through time into the record you read now.
ALSO GROWS
ʿataq: To move onward, pass away, advance
עָתַק
The verb’s sense of movement gives the word for “ancient” a sense of what has travelled far through time.
ʿattiq: Ancient, old
עַתִּיק
This is the singular form behind the verse’s closing description of these matters as ancient.
THE PATTERN
What is named and remembered across generations remains present to be read and received.
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.Then those who stand in awe of the LORD spoke, each one to his neighbor, and the LORD bent his ear and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written before his face for those in awe of the LORD, who reckon his name.For whatever was written before was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and through the comfort of the writings we might hold hope.THE THREAD
These were the potters, and those that settled among plants and hedges. There they settled with the king for his work.The next verse places these names among potters and people dwelling among plants and hedges, working with the king. The ancient record holds a world of craft and service alongside the names.
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