What Does 1 Chronicles 7:18 Mean?
And his sister Hammoleketh bore Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah.
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 his sister Hammoleketh bare Ishod, and Abiezer, and Mahalah.THE KEY
The woman whose name carries the language of reigning is the hinge through whom three sons enter this genealogy.
THE MEANING
You meet a family line as something carried through a named body, not as an abstract chain: Hammoleketh bears Ishod, Abiezer, and Mahalah, and the record keeps her in view. Her name carries the language of rule, while her bearing brings these lives into the lineage.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A genealogy records only men, and women are incidental to the line. This verse names Hammoleketh and makes her bearing the event through which three sons enter the record.
THE ROOT
וַתֵּלֶד
watteled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To bear, beget, bring forth.
“bare” in this verse is watteled. The same root holds the act of bearing, the child brought forth, and the generations that follow. English presents a birth; the Hebrew root lets you hear how that birth becomes lineage.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child
יֶלֶד
The child and the act that brings the child forth share the same root, joining birth to the person born.
toledot: Generations, descendants, family history
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The word for generations grows from the same root, linking Hammoleketh’s bearing to the continuing family line.
הַמֹּלֶכֶת
Hammoleketh
GROWS FROM
מלך
m-l-k
To reign, rule.
“Hammoleketh” in this verse is Hammoleketh. Her name belongs to the same root as the Hebrew words for king and queen, carrying the sense of reigning into a verse about birth. English leaves that resonance hidden: the genealogy places a name of rule at the point where three lives enter the line.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: King
מֶלֶךְ
This word shares the rule-and-reign root carried in Hammoleketh’s name.
malkah: Queen
מַלְכָּה
The feminine royal form makes the resonance in Hammoleketh’s name visible.
אֲבִיעֶזֶר
Abiezer
GROWS FROM
עזר
ʿ-z-r
To help, support.
Abiezer joins the word for father with the root for help, so help is carried inside a son’s name. The verse does not explain that name; it preserves the meaning within the lineage.
ALSO GROWS
ezer: Help, aid
עֵזֶר
This noun carries the help-root that forms the second part of Abiezer’s name.
azar: To help, support
עָזַר
The verb reveals the action held in the name’s help-root.
THE PATTERN
A family line becomes visible through women who bear children into named continuity.
And I will bless her, and give you a son by her; yes, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations, and kings of peoples shall come from her.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.Now Elisabeth's time was filled for her to bring forth, and she brought forth a son.THE THREAD
For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.The same ילד (yalad, to bear or beget) root appears in “bare” here and in Sarah’s bearing of Isaac. It opens the compressed genealogy as a record of the birth that makes a family line possible.
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