What Does 1 Chronicles 6:70 Mean?
And out of the half tribe of Manasseh, Aner with her pasturelands, and Bileam with her pasturelands, for the family of those left behind among the sons of Kohath.
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 out of the half tribe of Manasseh; Aner with her suburbs, and Bileam with her suburbs, for the family of the remnant of the sons of Kohath.THE KEY
Even what remains is given a named place, with open ground extending beyond its towns.
THE MEANING
A remnant is not an abstraction here: the verse names its towns and the land around them. Belonging has room around it; the place includes open ground beyond the town’s walls.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What remains has no place of its own. This verse names the remaining family and its towns with surrounding lands.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
גרש
garash
To drive out, expel, or cast away.
“pasturelands” in this verse is migrasheha. The word rendered “suburbs” is מִגְרָשׁ (migrash), open land around a town, formed from a root meaning “drive out.” The verse’s towns come with a defined space extending beyond their built edges; that surrounding ground is part of the place named for the families.
ALSO GROWS
migrash: The open pastureland surrounding a settlement.
מִגְרָשׁ
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “suburbs,” showing that the allotment includes land around the towns.
garash: To drive or send someone away.
גָּרַשׁ
The shared root gives the surrounding land an image of space cast outward from the settlement.
הַנּוֹתָרִים
hanotarim
GROWS FROM
יתר
yathar
To remain over or be left.
The word for the remnant describes those who remain. A related form, יִתְרוֹן (yitron), means “surplus” or “advantage,” holding remaining and what is left over in the same word family. Here the remaining Kohathite families are named as recipients of towns and surrounding land.
ALSO GROWS
hotir: To leave something remaining.
הוֹתִיר
It makes the remnant’s name concrete: these are those left remaining.
yitron: What is left over; an advantage or surplus.
יִתְרוֹן
This related form shows that what remains can also be understood as what is left in reserve.
מְנַשֶּׁה
Menashsheh
GROWS FROM
נשה
nashah
To forget, or to cause someone to forget.
Manasseh’s name is linked to “causing to forget”: Genesis 41:51 uses נַשַּׁנִי (nashani, “he has made me forget”) in the line “God hath made me forget.” The name carries a nature within it even in this plain list of towns and families.
ALSO GROWS
nashani: Joseph’s phrase in Genesis 41:51, “God hath made me forget.”
נַשַּׁנִי
The naming line connects this verb form to the name Manasseh.
Menashsheh: The name associated with causing forgetfulness.
מְנַשֶּׁה
The territory’s name carries this wordplay alongside the named places allotted there.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling assigned to a people includes open land beyond its walls.
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.But the field of the pasturelands of their cities shall not be sold, for it is their holding of the ages.And they spake unto them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, The LORD commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to settle in, with their pastures for our cattle.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.This verse names the Levites’ suburbs as land around their cities, making explicit what 1 Chronicles 6:70 compresses into “Aner with her suburbs” and “Bileam with her suburbs.” The shared word מִגְרָשׁ (migrash, open land around a town) makes the settlement’s surrounding space part of its allotted place.
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