What Does 1 Chronicles 6:42 Mean?
The son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei.
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 Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei,THE KEY
The repeated “son” (בֵּן, ben) echoes בָּנָה (banah, “to build”), making this genealogy a line built across generations.
THE MEANING
You are held in a chain of relationships: what reaches you comes through lives before yours, and what you receive becomes part of what you carry forward. The names add their own texture, Shimei (שִׁמְעִי, Shimʿi, “hearing”), Zimmah (זִמָּה, zimmah, “design”), and Ethan (אֵיתָן, Eitan, “enduring”), while the repeated “son of” gives that continuity its form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your life begins wholly with itself: each person here is named through a relationship that precedes him.
THE ROOT
בֵּן
ben
GROWS FROM
בנה
build, build up
“son” in this verse is ben. The noun ben is linked with the verb banah, “to build.” Repeated three times, it makes the genealogy sound like a structure taking shape across generations.
ALSO GROWS
banah: build, build up
בָּנָה
This verb appears in the Hebrew expression for being built up through having children, connecting family continuity with building.
banim: sons, children
בָּנִים
The plural carries the family line forward, extending the building image beyond one generation.
שִׁמְעִי
Shimʿi
GROWS FROM
שמע
hear, listen
Shimei is linked with shamaʿ, “to hear,” and carries the sense of “hearing” or “heard.” The name brings the language of hearing into this chain of generations.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: hear, listen
שָׁמַע
The name rests on the same root as this act of hearing.
shemuʿah: report, thing heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The root can carry what is heard onward as a report, adding the sense of reception passed through a line.
זִמָּה
zimmah
GROWS FROM
זמם
devise, plan, form an intention
Zimmah carries the sense of a devised plan or intention; the root can describe a scheme, with its moral force shaped by context. Here the name marks a place in the lineage without telling a story about the person’s actions.
ALSO GROWS
zamam: devise, plan, plot
זָמַם
The verb exposes the act of forming an intention that is carried within the name.
mezimmah: plan, purpose, device
מְזִמָּה
This related noun shows how a formed intention can be carried as a plan, whether wise or harmful in context.
THE PATTERN
Identity is carried through named relationships, with each generation receiving a place in a line that continues.
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.When I recall the trust without a mask that is in you, which first made its home in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, I am persuaded that it lives in you also.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 phrase translated “obtain children” uses banah, “to build up,” for the hope of having children. That same word-family resonance sits inside ben, “son,” here, so the repeated genealogy reads as a line built across generations.
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