What Does 1 Chronicles 7:15 Mean?
And Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose name was Maachah. And the name of the second was Zelophehad, and Zelophehad had daughters.
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 Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister’s name was Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters.THE KEY
The Hebrew says Zelophehad’s daughters “were to him,” recording their place in the family line through their very existence.
THE MEANING
This line gives Zelophehad’s daughters a place in the family record, even though it leaves them unnamed here. The Hebrew uses the verb for being where English says he “had” daughters. Their relationship is already legible before the verse supplies their names or the inheritance claim attached to them.
THE ROOT
וַתִּהְיֶינָה
vattihyena
GROWS FROM
היה
be, become, come to be
“had” in this verse is vattihyena. The Hebrew clause is וַתִּהְיֶינָה לִצְלָפְחָד בָּנוֹת (vattihyena litzelophchad banot), literally, “and daughters were to Zelophehad.” The verb comes from היה (hayah), “be, become,” so what English renders as having is framed through the daughters’ being in relation to him. The verse records their place in the family before it gives their names or describes their inheritance claim.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: be, become
הָיָה
This is the root verb behind the verse’s wording: the daughters are said to be to Zelophehad.
hayu: they were
הָיוּ
This plural form of the same root makes the clause’s emphasis clear: the daughters are present in the family line.
yihyeh: he or it will be
יִהְיֶה
This form shows the root’s core sense of being or coming to be across time.
THE PATTERN
A family’s place in the biblical record is carried through women as well as men.
The daughters of Zelophehad speak what stands firm. You shall surely give them a holding of inheritance among their father's brothers, and you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them.And he shall be to you one who brings back your living soul, and one who nourishes your gray years. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.Salmon brought forth Boaz out of Rahab, and Boaz brought forth Obed out of Ruth, and Obed brought forth Jesse.THE THREAD
The daughters of Zelophehad speak what stands firm. You shall surely give them a holding of inheritance among their father's brothers, and you shall cause the inheritance of their father to pass over to them.Both verses use בָּנוֹת (banot), “daughters,” for Zelophehad’s children. Here their presence is recorded; in Numbers, that same family relation becomes the basis for inheritance passing to them.
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