What Does 1 Chronicles 4:27 Mean?
And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters, but his brethren did not have many children, nor did all their family multiply, like the children of Judah.
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 Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply, like to the children of Judah.THE KEY
The Hebrew root רָבָה (rābâ, “increase; become many”) puts every family branch on one scale of growth, while showing that kinship does not guarantee equal numbers.
THE MEANING
Related households grow at very different rates and still belong to the same family line. The verse holds Shimei’s larger household beside his brothers’ smaller branches, with Judah’s descendants marking a wider increase.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Kinship does not mean every branch must grow at the same rate to remain part of the whole.
THE ROOT
הִרְבּוּ
hirbu
GROWS FROM
רבה
to increase; become many
“multiply” in this verse is hirbu. This root makes multiplication a process of increase, not merely a fixed headcount. The verse places growth at different scales within one kinship: one household has many children, while its brothers’ branches remain smaller.
ALSO GROWS
hirbah: he increased; he made many
הִרְבָּה
A form of the same root shows increase as something that happens or is brought about.
marbeh: increasing; multiplying
מַרְבֶּה
This form carries the root’s sense of growth as an ongoing quality.
שִׁמְעִי
Shimʿi
GROWS FROM
שמע
to hear; listen
Shimei’s name is linked to the root of hearing, with the sense of “heard” or “renowned.” The family’s numbers are recorded under a name that carries the idea of being heard and remembered.
ALSO GROWS
shāmaʿ: to hear; listen
שָׁמַע
The root appears directly as the act of hearing, the seed carried by Shimei’s name.
shemuʿah: report; news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch turns hearing into a report that can be carried and remembered.
יְהוּדָה
Yehudah
GROWS FROM
ידה
to praise; give thanks
The name Judah is linked to the root of praise and thanksgiving. Here it marks the larger line of descendants in the comparison, adding the name’s praise-root beneath the verse’s plain count of children.
ALSO GROWS
yādâ: to praise; give thanks
יָדָה
This verb carries the root associated with Judah’s name.
Yehudah: Judah; a name associated with praise
יְהוּדָה
The name itself preserves the root’s praise-related sense in the verse’s closing comparison.
THE PATTERN
A people can expand as a whole while household growth remains sharply uneven among its branches.
And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.And he had two wives, one named Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah bore children, but Hannah bore no children.And the word of God grew, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great crowd of the priests heard and responded by leaning their weight.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Because the LORD has heard that I was hated, he has therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon, Heard.The root שׁמע (shamaʿ, “hear”) in Shimei’s name also appears in the naming of Simeon, שִׁמְעוֹן (Shimʿon, “heard”): Leah names him because the LORD has heard. The shared root makes these names a small chain of hearing carried through family lines.
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