What Does 1 Chronicles 7:40 Mean?
All these were the children of Asher, heads of their father's house, choice and mighty men of strength, heads of the lifted ones. And the number of them, enrolled throughout their genealogies for war and for the battle line, was twenty and six thousand men.
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
All these were the children of Asher, heads of their father’s house, choice and mighty men of valour, chief of the princes. And the number throughout the genealogy of them that were apt to the war and to battle was twenty and six thousand men.THE KEY
“Valour” is chayil, a word for strength, resources, and even an army, so the verse pictures courage as a people’s gathered capacity.
THE MEANING
Strength here takes shape through households, leaders, and people counted for battle. The number makes that shared capacity visible: twenty-six thousand men.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the idea that valour belongs only to a lone hero; it presents strength as something a whole people can gather and order.
THE ROOT
חַיִל
chayil
GROWS FROM
חיל
ḥ-y-l; strength or capacity, with meanings that extend to resources and a gathered force.
“mighty men of strength” in this verse is chayil. The word translated “valour” can also name wealth or an army. English can make courage sound like a private trait; chayil lets you hear the capacity and force gathered in these households.
ALSO GROWS
chayil: Resources, wealth, or means.
חַיִל
This sense makes the verse’s strength tangible: capacity includes what a people has at its disposal.
ḥēyl: An army or host; chayil in a construct form.
חֵיל
This sense brings the word close to the force gathered for battle in the verse.
גִּבּוֹר
gibbor
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r; to grow strong or prevail.
“mighty men of strength” in this verse is gibbor. “Mighty” comes from a word-family that includes prevailing and strength. Alongside chayil, it describes not only courage but the capacity to stand and prevail.
ALSO GROWS
gāvar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
It shows the action contained in “mighty”: having strength that can hold its ground.
gevurah: Might or strength.
גְּבוּרָה
This related noun echoes the force named by gibbor in the verse.
רֹאשׁ
rosh
GROWS FROM
ראש
r-ʾ-sh; head, chief, or first.
“heads of their father's house” in this verse is rosh. The Hebrew repeats rosh for both “heads” of the households and “chief” of the princes. English gives these roles different labels, while the verse presents both as headship within an ordered people.
ALSO GROWS
rōʾsh: Head or chief.
רֹאשׁ
This is the word behind both leadership descriptions in the verse.
rēʾshit: Beginning or first part.
רֵאשִׁית
This related form carries the sense of what comes first, illuminating the leadership conveyed by rosh.
THE PATTERN
Strength becomes shared capacity when distinct people are gathered and ordered toward a common purpose.
Moreover, you shall look out from all the people for men of strength, who stand in awe of God, men of truth, who hate plunder; and set such over them as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.For as the body is one, and has many limbs, and all the limbs of the body, though many, are one body, so also is the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Who can find a woman of strength? Her price is far above rubies.“Valour” here and “virtuous” there translate the same Hebrew word, חַיִל (chayil), meaning strength or capacity. The word names a woman’s strength as well as the force of a people prepared for battle.
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