What Does 1 Chronicles 7:8 Mean?

And the sons of Becher were Zemira, and Joash, and Eliezer, and Elioenai, and Omri, and Jerimoth, and Abiah, and Anathoth, and Alameth. All these were the sons of Becher.

1 Chronicles 7:8 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And the sons of Becher; Zemira, and Joash, and Eliezer, and Elioenai, and Omri, and Jerimoth, and Abiah, and Anathoth, and Alameth. All these are the sons of Becher.

THE KEY

The Hebrew word for “sons” carries the image of a family line being built.

THE MEANING

This verse holds Becher’s family in a sequence of names, each part of a line continuing beyond a single person. The repeated frame, “sons of Becher,” presents the lineage as something built and carried through generations.

THE ROOT

בְּנֵי

benei

GROWS FROM

בנה

⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah): build, construct. The Hebrew word for sons is conventionally connected with this root.

English makes “sons” sound like a bare kinship label. Its connection to building also lets the names read as a family line taking shape across generations.

ALSO GROWS

build: construct or form

This is the root’s basic action, echoed in the idea of a lineage taking shape.

building: a constructed structure

The family line can be seen as a structure carried through the named descendants.

builder: one who builds

This branch keeps the root’s image active: the lineage takes shape through successive generations.

THE PATTERN

A lineage remains visible through names carried across generations.

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.

Genesis 5:1 · SDVThe verse introduces a genealogy as a record of generations carried by name.

Now these are the births of Perez. Perez brought forth Hezron.

Ruth 4:18 · SDVThe lineage continues through a named sequence of descendants.

The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:1 · SDVThe opening identifies a person through the names of the generations before him.

THE THREAD

And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.

Genesis 16:2 · SDV

The Hebrew phrase KJV renders “obtain children” uses ⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah, build): “I may be built up from her.” That same building image lies beneath “sons” in Becher’s genealogy, joining the named descendants to the idea of a family line being built.

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