What Does 1 Chronicles 5:6 Mean?
Beerah his son, whom Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, stripped bare. He was the one lifted up over the Reubenites.
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
Beerah his son, whom Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive: he was prince of the Reubenites.THE KEY
A ruler carries Beerah away, yet the verse still names him as a prince among his people.
THE MEANING
A ruler can forcibly remove you from your place, and that removal does not make your name, kinship, or standing vanish. The verse holds Beerah’s captivity beside his place as a Reubenite prince, without letting either fact erase the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that displacement cancels who you are or where you belong: Beerah is carried away, yet his name and place among his people remain in the sentence.
THE ROOT
הֶגְלָה
heglah
GROWS FROM
גלה
Uncover or expose; in this causative form, send into exile.
“stripped bare” in this verse is heglah. The Hebrew verb is a causative form of גלה (galah), a root that also means to uncover or expose. English gives the force of the removal, while the Hebrew root also holds the image of being exposed and taken from one’s place.
ALSO GROWS
galah: Uncover, reveal, or be exposed.
גָּלָה
This branch shows the root’s sense of exposure beneath the verse’s language of exile.
golah: Exile; an exiled person or community.
גּוֹלָה
The related noun names exile as a condition and a people, extending the verb’s meaning beyond a single journey.
נָשִׂיא
nasi
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, or bear.
“the one lifted up over” in this verse is nasi. נָשִׂיא (nasi, prince or chief) belongs to the family of נָשָׂא (nasa, lift or bear), giving the title a sense of one raised to leadership or bearing authority. The verse keeps that standing visible even as Beerah is forcibly removed.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb supplies the root beneath the title and its sense of elevated standing or responsibility.
massa: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
This branch shows the same root naming what is borne, adding the image of weight to the title’s sense of authority.
THE PATTERN
Power can remove or restrain a person while their name, lineage, or standing remains visible in the record.
Now among these, from the children of Judah, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.And Joseph was brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, chief of the slaughterers, an Egyptian, bought him from the hands of the Ishmaelites, who had brought him down there. And the LORD was with Joseph, and he was a man who broke through; and he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.And Pilate wrote a sign, and set it upon the cross. The writing said, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.THE THREAD
Until the LORD removed Israel from his face, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was stripped bare out of their own land to Assyria until this day.The verb וַיִּגֶל (vayigel, “he exiled” or “removed”) belongs to the same root גלה (galah, “uncover” or “send into exile”) as the verb applied to Beerah. His removal appears here as one named instance within the wider exile of Israel.
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