What Does 1 Chronicles 6:59 Mean?
And Ashan with her pasturelands, and Beth-shemesh with her pasturelands.
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 Ashan with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs:THE KEY
The verse counts the open land around a town as part of the town itself.
THE MEANING
Ashan (עָשָׁן, “smoke”) and Beth-shemesh (בֵּית־שֶׁמֶשׁ, “house of the sun”) are named with their surrounding open land. The verse presents each place through both its center and the space that belongs with it. A dwelling’s extent reaches beyond its clustered homes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A town ends where its buildings end.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
u-migrāšêhā
GROWS FROM
גרש
To drive out or push away; the related noun migrash means open land around a town.
“pasturelands” in this verse is u-migrāšêhā. The word translated “suburbs” names open ground as part of a town’s allotted space. Its connection to the idea of being driven outward gives the town an edge that extends beyond its built center.
ALSO GROWS
gāraš: to drive out, expel
גָּרַשׁ
The root’s outward movement helps illuminate the open land beyond the town’s center.
gērūš: expulsion; divorce
גֵּרוּשׁ
This branch also carries a sense of separation; here, the related land marks the town’s outer reach.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling includes the surrounding ground and boundaries that shape its lived extent.
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 he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
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.Numbers uses the same Hebrew word, מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), for the open land around a town. It makes the relationship explicit: the dwelling includes its surrounding ground.
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