What Does 1 Chronicles 7:16 Mean?
And Maachah the wife of Machir bore a son, and she called his name Peresh. And the name of his brother was Sheresh, and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.
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 Maachah the wife of Machir bare a son, and she called his name Peresh; and the name of his brother was Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rakem.THE KEY
One son bears the name “Root,” so the genealogy places its own image inside a family line that grows by branching.
THE MEANING
Your life belongs to a living chain of birth and naming: what you receive can become a root for what follows. Sheresh means “root,” and the verse places that name beside sons who extend the line.
THE ROOT
שֶׁרֶשׁ
Sheresh
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ר־שׁ
sh-r-sh
Root or source; as a verb, to take root.
Sheresh is the Hebrew word for “root,” so this name carries the image of a source from which life grows. In a genealogy, that image makes lineage visible: a root holds the beginning of what branches forward.
ALSO GROWS
sharash: To take root or strike roots.
שָׁרַשׁ
The name becomes an action: what begins as a root takes hold and continues growing.
shoresh: Root, source, or base.
שֹׁרֶשׁ
This is the familiar form of the same word, naming the origin from which later growth emerges.
וַתֵּלֶד
vatteled
GROWS FROM
י־ל־ד
y-l-d
To give birth, beget, or bring forth.
“bare” in this verse is vatteled. The verb for bearing a child shares its root with words for child and generations. English can make birth sound like a single event; the Hebrew root also holds the continuation that follows it.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The child is the one brought forth by the act of birth.
toledot: Generations or descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The same root carries birth outward into the line of generations.
וַתִּקְרָא
vattiqra
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
To call, summon, proclaim, or read aloud.
“called” in this verse is vattiqra. The verb for calling a name is also used for proclaiming and reading aloud. Beside שֵׁם (shem, “name” as nature), it presents naming as speaking identity into the family’s memory.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: Reading, proclamation, or assembly.
מִקְרָא
A call can gather people around words spoken aloud.
qeri’ah: Calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
The name is voiced, not merely recorded; it enters the line through speech.
THE PATTERN
Life takes root in one generation and branches into the next.
You clear the way before it, and it drives its roots deep and fills the land.And if the first portion is set apart, so is the lump. And if the root is set apart, so are the branches.THE THREAD
You clear the way before it, and it drives its roots deep and fills the land.Psalm 80:9 uses שׁ־ר־שׁ (sh-r-sh, “root; take root”), the same root carried by Sheresh’s name. It turns the name into motion: what is named as root takes hold and spreads.
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