What Does 1 Chronicles 6:1 Mean?
The sons of Levi were Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.
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
The sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.THE KEY
Levi means “joined,” and this genealogy turns that name into a line carried forward through three sons.
THE MEANING
The verse lets a name be more than an isolated label: Levi’s joining continues through the named branches of his family. It presents identity as something carried through connection and inheritance, not formed in isolation.
THE ROOT
לֵוִי
Levi
GROWS FROM
לוה
To join, attach, or accompany.
In Genesis, Leah explains Levi’s name through the hope that her husband will be joined to her; here that joining continues through three sons. The root lets the genealogy read as more than a roster: attachment becomes a line that carries on.
ALSO GROWS
lavah: To join or accompany.
לָוָה
This verb gives the name Levi its sense of attachment and connection.
malveh: A lender.
מַלְוֶה
The same root can describe a bond formed through lending, extending the idea of joining into a relationship between people.
מְרָרִי
Merari
GROWS FROM
מרר
To be bitter or experience bitterness.
Merari carries the language of bitterness within the same family line. The name allows the genealogy to hold a difficult quality as part of what is carried forward.
ALSO GROWS
mar: Bitter.
מַר
This short form makes the root’s taste plain in Merari’s name.
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
The same root names bitterness in something tangible, letting Merari’s name carry a sensory quality rather than an abstract label.
THE PATTERN
What is received through connection can be carried forward through generations.
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.So that the generation that follows might know them, the children yet to be born, who will rise and recount them to their children.And these things you heard from me among many witnesses, place beside steady people who will be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.Leah names Levi because she expects her husband to be “joined” to her. Chronicles then names the sons through whom that joining continues, making the name’s root visible as a family line.
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