What Does 1 Chronicles 7:14 Mean?
The sons of Manasseh were Asriel, whom she bore, but his concubine, the Aramitess, bore Machir the father of Gilead.
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
The sons of Manasseh; Ashriel, whom she bare: (but his concubine the Aramitess bare Machir the father of Gilead:THE KEY
The same root names both the act of bearing and the generations it brings forth, so this lineage is carried by women the verse leaves unnamed.
THE MEANING
Your life reaches you through births and bodies, including people remembered only by the roles others gave them. Here, one woman bears Ashriel, and an Aramitess concubine bears Machir, named as the father of Gilead. The sons receive names in the record, while the women’s bearing carries the line forward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a lineage is carried by fathers alone: this verse’s line depends on two women bearing sons, though neither is named.
THE ROOT
יָלְדָה
yaldah
GROWS FROM
ילד
Y-L-D
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
The Hebrew uses this same root for both occurrences of “bare.” Its branches include both the child and the generations that descend from birth, joining each woman’s act of bearing to the continuation of the line.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child
יֶלֶד
The child and the act of bearing share one root: the verse holds the bringing forth and the one brought forth together.
toledot: Generations, descendants
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The same root reaches from birth into generations, revealing how these two births carry the family line forward.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s lineages move through the act of bearing, even when the record names the child more fully than the woman who bears him.
When the days had come around, Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, the asked-for one, saying, Because I have asked him of the LORD.So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, the LORD gave her to conceive, and she bore a son.And Jacob brought forth Joseph, the husband of Mary, out of whom Jesus was brought forth, who is called the anointed one.THE THREAD
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root, ילד (yalad), when Eve bears Cain. In both verses, bearing connects a woman’s body to the next named link in a lineage.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us