What Does 1 Chronicles 9:4 Mean?

Uthai the son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of Bani, of the children of Pharez, the son of Judah.

1 Chronicles 9:4 · 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

Uthai the son of Ammihud, the son of Omri, the son of Imri, the son of Bani, of the children of Pharez the son of Judah.

THE KEY

This genealogy carries Uthai’s line through named generations to Pharez, whose name means “breach”, a rupture preserved inside descent.

THE MEANING

You meet Uthai through the names of those before him: each “son of” relationship holds him within a line that reaches back to Judah through Pharez. The name at that point in the line carries the image of a breach, a breaking through.

THE ROOT

פֶּרֶץ

Perets

GROWS FROM

פרץ

To break through or burst forth

Pharez’s name shares its root with the words for breaking forth and a breach. The genealogy carries that image in a name, while leaving each descendant’s own story unstated.

ALSO GROWS

parats: To break through, burst forth

פָּרַץ

This verbal form makes the movement inside Pharez’s name audible: something breaks out.

perets: A breach, an opening made by breaking through

פֶּרֶץ

This noun is also the name Pharez, joining the family line to the image of a breach.

THE PATTERN

A name can preserve an event inside a family line, and a genealogy can carry that name forward.

And it came to be, as he drew back his hand, and behold, his brother came out, and she said, How have you broken through? Let this breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Pharez, the breach.

Genesis 38:29 · SDVThe verse connects Pharez’s name directly to “broken forth” and “breach,” making the name’s root explicit.

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

Ruth 4:18 · SDVThis genealogy places Pharez’s name at the start of a line that is carried from one generation to the next.

Judah brought forth Perez and Zerah out of Tamar, and Perez brought forth Hezron, and Hezron brought forth Ram.

Matthew 1:3 · SDVThe name Phares remains within another genealogy, showing the family line being named and carried forward.

THE THREAD

And it came to be, as he drew back his hand, and behold, his brother came out, and she said, How have you broken through? Let this breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Pharez, the breach.

Genesis 38:29 · SDV

Genesis connects Pharez’s name with “broken forth” and “breach,” words from the root ⁨פרץ⁩ (parats, to break through). Beside that naming, the genealogy carries the root’s image forward in the name itself.

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