What Does 2 Samuel 23:31 Mean?
Abi-albon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite.
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
Abi-albon the Arbathite, Azmaveth the Barhumite,THE KEY
Azmaveth carries strength and death together in a name the English leaves untranslated.
THE MEANING
This verse presents two particular people, each named and tied to a place. Azmaveth’s name holds strength beside death, and the line leaves that tension intact. Shared purpose does not erase the distinct lives through which it is carried.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that only the leader deserves to be remembered: this line names the men beside him and ties each to a place.
THE ROOT
עַז
ʿaz
GROWS FROM
עזז
Be strong, grow mighty.
The name Azmaveth is commonly parsed with עַז (ʿaz, strong) as its first element. Paired with the word for death, strength stays joined to mortality inside the name.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoz: Strength, might.
עֹז
It shows the root’s force as a quality carried within the name.
maʿoz: Stronghold, refuge.
מָעוֹז
It extends strength from a personal quality to a place of shelter.
מָוֶת
māwet
GROWS FROM
מות
Die; death.
The second element of Azmaveth is the word for death. Joined to “strong,” it keeps mortality inside the name rather than reducing its bearer to strength alone.
ALSO GROWS
mût: To die.
מוּת
The verb shows the living action carried by the same root as the name’s second element.
māwet: Death.
מָוֶת
This is the noun embedded in Azmaveth, placing death beside strength in the name.
THE PATTERN
A shared work is remembered by preserving the distinct names of the people who carry it.
Hurai of the streambeds of Gaash, Abiel the Arbathite,Now there were in the assembly at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, who had been nourished alongside Herod the ruler of a fourth, and Saul.Embrace Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in the anointed one, Jesus.THE THREAD
Hurai of the streambeds of Gaash, Abiel the Arbathite,This parallel preserves the same names and places, while giving Abi-albon as Abiel. The two lists hold the people in view even as one name appears in a different form.
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