What Does 2 Chronicles 11:19 Mean?
Who bore him children, Jeush, Shamariah, and Zaham.
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
Which bare him children; Jeush, and Shamariah, and Zaham.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “children,” banim, echoes banah, “build”: what is born here also builds the household forward.
THE MEANING
What comes forth through a family is more than continuation; each life arrives as a distinct person with a name. Jeush, Shamariah, and Zaham stand together in one household without becoming interchangeable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A child is merely an extension of the one who bears them. The three names hold each son as a distinct person within the family.
THE ROOT
בָּנִים
banim
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build, build up, establish.
The word banim carries the b-n consonants of banah, “build.” Beneath the mention of children is an image of a household being built and carried forward.
ALSO GROWS
ben: son, child
בֵּן
The singular form names a child within a family relationship; here, three sons are gathered into one household.
binyan: building, structure
בִּנְיָן
This form shares the build root, making the household-building echo audible beneath “children.”
שְׁמַרְיָה
Shemaryah
GROWS FROM
שמר
Guard, keep, watch over.
“Shamariah” in this verse is Shemaryah. Shemaryah joins shamar with Yah and is commonly understood as “YHWH has guarded.” The name carries keeping as part of the nature this son bears into the family line.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: keeper, one who watches
שֹׁמֵר
It shares the guarding root carried in Shamariah’s name.
mishmeret: charge, keeping, guard duty
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shows the root’s sense of keeping something entrusted, deepening the name’s guarding echo.
וַתֵּלֶד
vatteled
GROWS FROM
ילד
Bear, bring forth, beget.
“bore” in this verse is vatteled. The verb for bearing and the word for a child belong to the same root family. Hebrew binds the act of bringing forth to the person who enters the family line.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The child is the one brought forth by the action named in the verse.
toledot: generations, what is brought forth
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch carries birth outward into the generations that follow.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets birth carry a person’s nature forward through the name given to that life.
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.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.The Hebrew behind “obtain children” uses banah, “build”: Sarai says she may be built up through Hagar. Here, banim (“children”) carries the same building echo, revealing lineage as the building of a household.
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