What Does 1 Chronicles 6:10 Mean?
And Johanan brought forth Azariah, the one who served as priest in the house that Solomon built in Jerusalem.
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 Johanan begat Azariah, (he it is that executed the priest’s office in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem:)THE KEY
Azariah’s name says “Yah has helped,” and the verse locates that help in priestly service within Jerusalem, the city of wholeness.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through Azariah’s name, “Yah has helped”, and identifies him by priestly service in the house at Jerusalem. Help takes visible shape here as a life entrusted to service in a place whose name carries the resonance of shalom, wholeness.
THE ROOT
עֲזַרְיָה
ʿAzaryāh
GROWS FROM
עזר
To help or support.
Azariah’s name carries help in its very form: Yah has helped. The verse places that name beside priestly service, letting help be heard as part of the life by which he is known.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēzer: Help; a helper.
עֵזֶר
This noun shares the root in Azariah’s name, making the name’s help-language explicit.
ʿāzar: To help or support.
עָזַר
This verb is the action carried in the name: Yah acts as helper.
ʾEliʿezer: “God is my help.”
אֱלִיעֶזֶר
This related name makes the same root audible as a direct confession of help.
כִּהֵן
kihēn
GROWS FROM
כהן
Priestly service; serving in the role of a priest.
“served as priest” in this verse is kihēn. The root names both the priest and the act of serving as one. Azariah is identified through service enacted in the house, joining his role to the work he carries there.
ALSO GROWS
kōhēn: Priest.
כֹּהֵן
This is the person-word from the same root as the verse’s description of Azariah’s service.
kehunnāh: Priesthood; priestly office.
כְּהֻנָּה
This names the office enacted by the verb in the verse.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
Wholeness; completeness.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. Yerushalayim carries the sound and consonants of shalom, wholeness, and its dual form evokes the twofold wholeness named in this lens. The location adds another layer to the scene: priestly service takes place within a name that opens toward wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This branch gives the wholeness carried in Jerusalem’s name its familiar Hebrew form.
shalem: Whole; complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch shows the root’s sense of being made whole or complete.
THE PATTERN
Help from God takes form as support that accompanies a person’s life and work.
And the name of the other was Eliezer, my God is help; for the God of my father, he said, was my help, and snatched me from the sword of Pharaoh.My help comes from the LORD, who makes heavens and earth.So that we may boldly say, The LORD is my helper, and I will not fear. What will a human do to me?THE THREAD
And the name of the other was Eliezer, my God is help; for the God of my father, he said, was my help, and snatched me from the sword of Pharaoh.Eliezer and Azariah share the root עזר (ʿ-z-r), meaning help or support. Exodus makes the name’s meaning audible in the phrase “the God of my father … was mine help,” opening the help-language held in Azariah’s name.
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