What Does 1 Chronicles 6:56 Mean?
But the fields of the city, and its enclosures, they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
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
But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh.THE KEY
The verb for giving also carries the sense of setting something in place, so the gift here has a location and shape.
THE MEANING
The verse presents provision as concrete: fields and villages, a portion with a place and boundaries. What is given is not left as an abstraction; it is set within the world.
THE ROOT
נָתְנוּ
natnu
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, put, or set.
“gave” in this verse is natnu. The root holds giving and placing together: what is given is set somewhere. Here the fields and villages form a specific portion, rather than an undefined abundance.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift, present.
מַתָּנָה
This branch names what is given as a concrete thing, echoing the land assigned in the verse.
netinim: The Nethinim, temple servants; literally, “given ones.”
נְתִינִים
Their name preserves the root’s sense of being given or assigned, connecting transfer with a defined place or role.
חֲצֵרֶיהָ
chatseréha
GROWS FROM
חצר
Enclosure, courtyard, or settled place.
“enclosures” in this verse is chatseréha. The word translated “villages” also carries the sense of a courtyard or enclosed place. It lets the surrounding settlements appear as bounded, gathered places that belong with the city.
ALSO GROWS
chatser: Courtyard or enclosed court.
חָצֵר
This sense brings out the bounded character hidden beneath the English “villages.”
chatserim: Villages or settlements.
חֲצֵרִים
This related form names the settlements around the city, linking them to the root’s image of an enclosed place.
THE PATTERN
A gift becomes tangible when it is given a specific portion and place.
For all the land that you see, I will give it to you, and to your seed for the ages.Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.and set them down at the feet of the sent ones, and it was given out to each as anyone had need.THE THREAD
But the fields of the city, and the villages thereof, gave they to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for his holding.Joshua repeats the same fields, villages, and giving to Caleb, using the same Hebrew root נתן (natan), “give, put, or set.” The parallel makes clear that the land is assigned as a specific possession.
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