What Does 1 Chronicles 6:38 Mean?
The son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.
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 son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel.THE KEY
The repeated “son of” carries a building-root, so this genealogy presents identity taking shape through generations.
THE MEANING
Your life is not self-originating: identity arrives through names and relationships that carry a line forward. Here the line reaches יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el, “one who strives with God”) and passes through לֵוִי (Levi, “joined”), holding struggle and belonging together. The repeated “son of” makes that inherited connection the structure of the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that a life is self-made and begins with itself gives way to a life carried through generations and relationships.
THE ROOT
בֵּן
ben
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
Build, establish.
The Hebrew noun בֵּן (ben, “son”) is linked to בָּנָה (bānāh, “build”). English presents separate links in the genealogy; the Hebrew lets the line also sound like a family being built across generations.
ALSO GROWS
build: To build or establish.
בָּנָה
The building sense lets “son” resonate with the continuation of a family through each generation.
’ibbāneh: I may be built up; in context, obtain children.
אִבָּנֶה
In Genesis 16:2, Sarai uses this form for becoming a mother through Hagar, expressing family formation as being built.
לֵוִי
Levi
GROWS FROM
לוה
lavah
Join, attach, accompany; also lend.
Levi’s name carries the sense of joining inside this chain of descent. The line is made of relationships that attach one generation to another.
ALSO GROWS
yillāweh: Be joined or attached.
יִלָּוֶה
In Genesis 29:34, Leah uses this verb when she names Levi, making the name itself express joining.
lend: Lend or extend a loan.
תַלְוֶה
The same root reaches into lending, an act that binds one person to another through what is entrusted.
THE PATTERN
Identity is carried forward through a chain of named generations.
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.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.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 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.The Hebrew behind “obtain children” is אִבָּנֶה (’ibbāneh, “I may be built up”), from the same בנה (banah, “build”) root linked to בֵּן (ben, “son”). That root makes the repeated “son of” in this verse resonate with a family being built through generations.
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