What Does Ezra 10:22 Mean?
And of the sons of Pashur, Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethaneel, Jozabad, and Elasah.
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 of the sons of Pashur; Elioenai, Maaseiah, Ishmael, Nethaneel, Jozabad, and Elasah.THE KEY
This roll call carries its own testimony: God hears, God gives, and Yahweh’s work is folded into the names.
THE MEANING
The line gives no deeds, yet the names carry meanings: Ishmael means “God hears,” Nethaneel “God has given,” and Maaseiah “Yahweh’s work.” The names hold those declarations inside a list, even when the line leaves each person’s story untold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This is only a list of labels, with nothing more inside the names. Their meanings speak of hearing, giving, and doing.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמָעֵאל
Yishmaʿel
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed.
Ishmael means “God hears,” joining hearing to God within a person’s name. The English spelling preserves the name while leaving its sentence folded inside.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed.
שָׁמַע
This verb is the seed of Ishmael’s name: God hears.
shemuʿah: A report, what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The same root reaches from hearing to what is received and carried as a message.
נְתַנְאֵל
Netanʾel
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
Nethaneel means “God has given”: the act of giving is joined directly to God in the name. Beside Ishmael, it makes the list speak of divine action, hearing and giving, through the names themselves.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This verb forms the giving at the heart of Nethaneel’s name.
mattan: A gift.
מַתָּן
The related noun shows the same root’s movement from giving to what is given.
מַעֲשֵׂיָה
Maʿaseyāh
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
Do, make.
Maaseiah means “Yahweh’s work.” The name carries the root of making as something belonging to Yahweh, adding work and action to the hearing and giving named elsewhere in the line.
ALSO GROWS
ʿasah: Do, make.
עָשָׂה
This is the verb at the root of Maaseiah’s reference to Yahweh’s work.
maʿaseh: Work, deed, making.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The noun makes the root’s action visible as a work or deed.
THE PATTERN
A person’s name can preserve a declaration about what God does.
And the messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.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 the messenger of the LORD said to her, Behold, you are with child, and you will bear a son, and you will call his name Ishmael, God-hears; for the LORD has heard and responded to your bending low.Ishmael in Ezra carries the root שמע (shamaʿ, “hear”), and Genesis states the meaning in its own words: “the LORD hath heard.” Genesis opens the declaration that Ezra leaves folded inside the name.
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