What Does 1 Chronicles 6:69 Mean?
And Aijalon with her pasturelands, and Gath-rimmon 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 Aijalon with her suburbs, and Gath-rimmon with her suburbs:THE KEY
The open ground around each city belongs to the place’s definition.
THE MEANING
Aijalon and Gath-rimmon appear with the open ground surrounding each city, holding dwelling and margin together. Aijalon echoes the Hebrew word for deer; Gath-rimmon joins “winepress” with “pomegranate.” The line includes the surrounding land in what each place names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A city’s identity ends at its built center, and everything beyond it is incidental.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
גרש
Drive out, expel; the related noun מִגְרָשׁ (migrash) means open common or pasture ground around a city.
“pasturelands” in this verse is migrasheha. The KJV’s “suburbs” here means open land attached to a city, not modern residential neighborhoods. The noun is commonly connected with the root sense of land set outside a settlement, making the surrounding commons part of each city’s named allotment.
ALSO GROWS
garash: To drive away or expel.
גָּרַשׁ
This verb shares the root consonants; the related land word names ground outside the city’s center.
migrashim: Open or pasture grounds around towns.
מִגְרָשִׁים
This plural form is the same land term repeated for both Aijalon and Gath-rimmon.
אַיָּלוֹן
Ayyalon
GROWS FROM
איל
Deer or stag; Aijalon is commonly linked with this word-family.
“Aijalon” in this verse is Ayyalon. The place name carries an animal image beneath its familiar English form. The verse sets that name beside a second name associated with a winepress and pomegranate, then includes the open land around both.
ALSO GROWS
ayyal: A male deer or stag.
אַיָּל
This is the animal word commonly associated with the name Aijalon.
ayalah: A female deer.
אַיָּלָה
This related form keeps the deer image within the same Hebrew word-family.
THE PATTERN
A place set aside for dwelling includes the open land around it as part of its provision.
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.Aijalon with her pastures, Gathrimmon with her pastures; four cities.For the Levites left their pasturelands and their holdings, and came to Judah and Jerusalem, for Jeroboam and his sons had thrust them away from serving as priests to the LORD.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 commons around the cities. It makes explicit the structure compressed into this verse: each named city comes with the land around it.
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