What Does 1 Chronicles 6:74 Mean?
And out of the tribe of Asher, Mashal with her pasturelands, and Abdon 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 out of the tribe of Asher; Mashal with her suburbs, and Abdon with her suburbs,THE KEY
The allotment does not stop at the town gate: its surrounding open land is part of the provision.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the dwelling and its surrounding open ground together as one provision. Your place within a community includes the space that lets daily life continue beyond the walls. Mashal and Abdon are named with their commons, so those who serve have room as well as a town.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that once a home is secured, the land beyond it is incidental; here, the surrounding commons belong to the allotment.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
ג־ר־שׁ
g-r-sh
Drive out or expel; the noun is traditionally connected with clearing open ground around a town.
“pasturelands” in this verse is migrasheha. The Hebrew names open common land around a town, often used for pasture. Its connection with garash, “drive out,” adds a sense of space cleared beyond the built center: what lies outside the town is still designated ground, not leftover nothing.
ALSO GROWS
garash: Drive out, expel
גָּרַשׁ
This verb is traditionally linked to the word for the open ground around the town.
migrash: Open land or commons around a town
מִגְרָשׁ
This is the land named alongside Mashal and Abdon, included in the allotment.
עַבְדּוֹן
Abdon
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
Work or serve.
Abdon’s name carries the language of service, and the Levites are a community set apart for service. The town and its surrounding ground show that a place for service includes room to dwell and sustain daily life.
ALSO GROWS
avad: Work, serve
עָבַד
The verb names the service carried by the Levites in this chapter.
eved: Servant
עֶבֶד
This related noun echoes the service embedded in Abdon’s name.
אָשֵׁר
Asher
GROWS FROM
אשר
ʾ-sh-r
Happiness, good fortune, flourishing.
Asher’s name carries the language of happiness and flourishing. Here, the land of Asher includes places and surrounding ground allotted to those who serve, giving flourishing a concrete shape in shared provision.
ALSO GROWS
ashrei: Flourishing, happy are
אַשְׁרֵי
This familiar form shares the language carried in Asher’s name.
osher: Happiness, good fortune
אֹשֶׁר
This noun makes explicit the flourishing held in the name Asher.
THE PATTERN
A community’s provision reaches beyond individual dwellings into the shared space and resources that sustain life.
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.These cities were every one with their pastures round about them; thus were all these cities.For none among them lacked, for as many as owned fields or houses sold them and carried the prices of what was sold,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 assigned around the Levite cities. It makes the pairing explicit: the dwelling and its surrounding ground form one provision, and Chronicles names Mashal and Abdon within that pattern.
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