What Does 1 Chronicles 7:5 Mean?
And their brothers among all the families of Issachar were mighty men of strength, reckoned in all by their genealogies, eighty and seven thousand.
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 their brethren among all the families of Issachar were valiant men of might, reckoned in all by their genealogies fourscore and seven thousand.THE KEY
The census counts strength in families: what looks like a number is a people’s shared capacity made visible.
THE MEANING
You appear here within a people, where kinship and capacity belong in the same record. The count makes their shared strength visible without erasing the families that carry it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that strength belongs only to individuals; here, might is recorded across families as shared capacity.
THE ROOT
חֲיָלִים
ḥayalim
GROWS FROM
חיל
Strength or capacity; by extension, force, resources, wealth, or an army.
“mighty men of strength” in this verse is ḥayalim. This word reaches beyond an inner trait: it can name resources or an organized force. The verse counts a people’s capacity as something carried by many, across their families.
ALSO GROWS
ḥayil: Strength, wealth, or resources.
חַיִל
This range makes the people’s might more than bravery alone: it includes the capacity they embody together.
ḥēl: An army or host.
חֵיל
The same root can name collective force, matching the verse’s account of strength distributed among a people.
גִּבּוֹרֵי
gibbore
GROWS FROM
גבר
To be strong or to prevail.
The word translated “valiant” belongs to a root that also means to prevail. Paired with “might,” it describes strength embodied in a group, not simply a feeling of courage.
ALSO GROWS
gavar: To be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
The verb shows the active force inside the description of these men as valiant.
gevurah: Strength or might.
גְּבוּרָה
This noun makes explicit the strength carried by the same root as “valiant.”
יִשָּׂשכָר
Yissakhar
GROWS FROM
שכר
Hire, wages, or reward; the biblical naming story links Issachar with wages.
The name carries the language of reward into the genealogy. The verse records Issachar’s families and their might under a name already linked with recompense.
ALSO GROWS
sachar: Wages or reward.
שָׂכָר
Genesis 30:18 uses this word in the naming story that connects it with Issachar.
sakhir: A hired worker.
שָׂכִיר
This related word keeps the name’s association with hire and recompense visible.
THE PATTERN
A people’s capacity becomes visible when persons are counted as members of a shared whole.
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.And from the Gadites there separated themselves to David, to the stronghold in the wilderness, men of strength, men of war set in line for battle, who could bear the shield and the buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and who were quick as gazelles upon the mountains.So we, though many, are one body in the Anointed One, and each of us is a limb of one another.THE THREAD
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.The same Hebrew root behind “might” here appears as “able” there, describing capacity carried by people. English hides the shared word, so the Issachar count reads as collective capability rather than a bare total.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us