What Does 1 Chronicles 7:30 Mean?
The sons of Asher were Imnah, and Isuah, and Isui, and Beriah, and Serah their sister.
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 Asher; Imnah, and Isuah, and Ishuai, and Beriah, and Serah their sister.THE KEY
The record names Serah as a sister in her own right, while Asher’s name keeps the happiness Leah spoke at his birth alive in the family line.
THE MEANING
Serah remains visible in the family line as a named sister, not an anonymous relation. Asher carries the happiness Leah speaks over him in Genesis 30:13, and the list keeps that spoken meaning present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The family story is not carried only through sons: the record includes their sister Serah by name.
THE ROOT
אָשֵׁר
Asher
GROWS FROM
אשר
ʾ-š-r
To be happy or flourishing; in a related form, to call someone happy.
In Genesis 30:13, Leah says the daughters will call her happy and then names her son Asher. The shared root means this list carries forward the happiness spoken at the beginning of his name, not only his descendants.
ALSO GROWS
osher: Happiness, flourishing.
אֹשֶׁר
This noun makes explicit the happiness carried in Asher’s name.
ishruni: They call me happy.
אִשְּׁרוּנִי
Leah uses this form in Genesis 30:13, linking her words directly to the name Asher.
THE PATTERN
A name can preserve the condition or purpose that gives a life its place in the story.
And Leah said, Flourishing am I, for the daughters will call me so. And she called his name Asher, flourishing.And when he went in to his wife, she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Beriah, in harm, for in harm it had been in his house.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And Leah said, Flourishing am I, for the daughters will call me so. And she called his name Asher, flourishing.Leah’s “Happy am I” and “call me blessed” echo the root אשר (ʾ-š-r), meaning happiness and calling happy. The genealogy carries that same root forward as Asher’s family name, keeping Leah’s words inside the descendant line.
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