What Does 1 Chronicles 6:25 Mean?
And the sons of Elkanah were Amasai, and Ahimoth.
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 the sons of Elkanah; Amasai, and Ahimoth.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “sons” echoes the word for “build,” so this genealogy presents a family as a house taking shape through named lives.
THE MEANING
Elkanah’s line comes into focus through his sons, Amasai and Ahimoth. Ahimoth’s name is commonly read as “brother of death,” holding kinship and mortality together in the same family record.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
to build, establish
The word for “sons” echoes בָּנָה (banah), “to build.” That resonance lets a genealogy read as more than descent: it is a house taking shape through lives.
ALSO GROWS
ben: son
בֵּן
The singular word for son carries the same consonant pattern, linking a person in the line with the idea of a household being built.
banah: to build
בָּנָה
This is the verb whose sound and root illuminate the family line as a structure formed through its descendants.
אֶלְקָנָה
ʾElqānāh
GROWS FROM
קנה
q-n-h
to acquire, obtain, possess
“Elkanah” in this verse is ʾElqānāh. The name is commonly understood as “God has acquired” or “God has created,” joining the divine name El with qanah. The line begins with a name that carries the sense of life being brought into God’s possession or keeping.
ALSO GROWS
qanah: to acquire, obtain, possess
קָנָה
This verb supplies the name’s central sense and gives the family’s source a connection to receiving and bringing forth.
qinyan: possession, acquisition
קִנְיָן
This related noun keeps the idea of what is gained or brought into possession alongside Elkanah’s name.
אֲחִימוֹת
ʾAḥimoth
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
to die; death
Ahimoth is commonly parsed as “brother of death,” joining kinship language to the root for death. The family record keeps mortality within the names it carries forward.
ALSO GROWS
mut: to die
מוּת
This verb is the root action held within the name’s second element.
mavet: death
מָוֶת
This noun makes explicit the mortal meaning present in the name Ahimoth.
THE PATTERN
A family line is more than ancestry: it is a house built through named lives.
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.And all the people who were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. Let the LORD give the woman who comes into your house like Rachel and like Leah, the two who built the house of Israel. And act with strength in Ephratah, and call out a name in Bethlehem.For we are fellow workers with God. You are God's field; you are God's building.THE THREAD
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.Beneath “obtain children” is the Hebrew image of being built up, from בָּנָה (banah), “to build.” That root resonance links Sarai’s words to “sons” here, so the genealogy reads as a structure taking shape through lives.
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