What Does 1 Chronicles 6:20 Mean?
Of Gershom were Libni his son, Jahath his son, and Zimmah his son.
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
Of Gershom; Libni his son, Jahath his son, Zimmah his son,THE KEY
Gershom means “a sojourner there,” yet this verse places that name at the head of a continuing line of sons.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a name associated with sojourning inside a continuing chain of sons: Gershom, then Libni, Jahath, and Zimmah. A life marked by being an outsider can still enter continuity through relationship; the stranger’s name is carried onward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being a stranger means nothing lasting can grow from your life.
THE ROOT
גֵּרְשֹׁם
Gershom
GROWS FROM
גור
gûr
To sojourn or dwell as an outsider.
“Gershom” in this verse is Gershom. The name is explained in Exodus through the wordplay “a sojourner there,” drawing on גֵּר (ger), sojourner, from the root גּוּר (gûr), to sojourn. Here, that name stands within a continuing line: the language holds the stranger and the household together.
ALSO GROWS
gûr: To sojourn, to dwell as an outsider
גּוּר
This is the root that gives the name its sense of living as a stranger in a place.
ger: A sojourner, a resident outsider
גֵּר
The root’s action becomes an identity, the name carried forward at the start of this lineage.
THE PATTERN
A name and its identity remain present through the relationships that carry them from one generation to the next.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.Who was the son of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.THE THREAD
And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gershom, the sojourner, for he said, A sojourner I have been in a foreign land.This verse opens the meaning carried by the name Gershom: a sojourner in a strange land. In Chronicles, that name begins a continuing line, holding the experience of being a stranger alongside the continuation of family.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us