What Does 1 Chronicles 9:35 Mean?
And in Gibeon settled the father of Gibeon, Jehiel, whose wife's name was Maachah,
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 in Gibeon dwelt the father of Gibeon, Jehiel, whose wife’s name was Maachah:THE KEY
The genealogy turns dwelling into identity: a household is located through where it has settled and the bonds it carries.
THE MEANING
You are located by the life you have settled into and the bonds that shape your household. Even this brief line makes belonging tangible: a place, a father, a wife, and the names attached to them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A household is not just a list of labels with place as background; here, settlement and kinship are part of how it is known.
THE ROOT
יָשְׁבוּ
yāshvū
GROWS FROM
ישב
To sit, remain, settle, or dwell.
“settled” in this verse is yāshvū. The Hebrew word for dwelling holds the sense of sitting or settling: this household is not merely associated with Gibeon but established there. English gives the location; the root also carries the feeling of taking one’s place.
ALSO GROWS
yoshēv: One who sits or dwells; an inhabitant.
יוֹשֵׁב
The inhabitant is described through the same root as settling into a place.
moshāv: A dwelling place, seat, or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
The root turns the act of settling into the place where people make their home.
גִּבְעוֹן
Givʿōn
GROWS FROM
גבע
Hill or rising ground.
Gibeon belongs to the Hebrew hill-word family, so the place-name carries the contour of rising ground. The verse locates this household in a name that already holds the shape of the land.
ALSO GROWS
givʿāh: A hill.
גִּבְעָה
This related form makes the terrain within the name Gibeon visible.
givʿōt: Hills.
גִּבְעוֹת
The plural form carries the same hill-root into the surrounding landscape.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses dwelling to show how people are situated in a place, land, and community.
Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot settled in the cities of the round plain, and pitched his tent as far as Sodom.Lean your weight on the LORD and do good. Pitch your tent in the land and graze on steadiness.And there were Jews settled in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven.THE THREAD
Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot settled in the cities of the round plain, and pitched his tent as far as Sodom.The Hebrew root יָשַׁב (yāshav, to sit or settle) underlies “dwelt” in both passages. Genesis repeats the word to show two distinct settlements, while Chronicles compresses a household’s belonging into one place.
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