What Does 1 Chronicles 7:19 Mean?
And the sons of Shemidah were Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and Aniam.
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 the sons of Shemida were, Ahian, and Shechem, and Likhi, and Aniam.THE KEY
Shechem is also the Hebrew word for “shoulder,” so this family line carries an image of what bears weight.
THE MEANING
You belong to a line of lives, and you remain distinct within it: the verse names each son without recording his deeds. Shechem’s name adds the image of a shoulder, a place where weight can be borne.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that only recorded accomplishments make a life worth remembering: here, the names themselves are preserved.
THE ROOT
שְׁכֶם
Shekhem
GROWS FROM
שכם
sh-k-m
Shoulder, the part of the body that bears weight.
Shechem is not only a personal name; it is also the Hebrew word for “shoulder.” The name lets a concrete image of bearing weight sit inside this otherwise spare genealogy.
ALSO GROWS
shoulder: The shoulder, where a load rests.
שְׁכֶם
This is the same Hebrew word as the son’s name, so the image is carried in the name itself.
shekem eḥad: A shared shoulder; Zephaniah 3:9 renders the phrase “with one consent.”
שְׁכֶם אֶחָד
The shoulder image extends from bearing weight individually to serving together, adding a note of shared purpose to the name’s wider scriptural resonance.
THE PATTERN
A name keeps a person distinct while placing that life within a larger line of belonging.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; the governance shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of the Ages, Prince of Wholeness.Shechem is the Hebrew word for “shoulder,” and Isaiah uses that same word for the place where government rests. A name in a genealogy thus echoes a larger scriptural image of weight being borne.
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