What Does Ezra 10:32 Mean?

Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah.

Ezra 10:32 · 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

Benjamin, Malluch, and Shemariah.

THE KEY

Inside Shemariah’s name sits a whole sentence: the LORD has guarded.

THE MEANING

This verse lets a name carry a living action: Shemariah means “the LORD has guarded.” Its root holds guarding and watchfulness inside a person’s name, so the bare list contains a quiet statement of being kept.

THE ROOT

שְׁמַרְיָה

Shemaryah

GROWS FROM

שמר

Guard, keep, watch over.

“Shemariah” in this verse is Shemaryah. The name ⁨שְׁמַרְיָה⁩ (Shemaryah, “the LORD has guarded”) joins ⁨שׁמר⁩ (shamar, “guard, keep”) with ⁨יה⁩ (Yah, a short form of the divine name). Its Hebrew form carries the action of guarding inside the name itself.

ALSO GROWS

shamar: Guarded, kept, watched over.

שָׁמַר

This verb is the seed inside Shemariah’s name, giving the name its sense of being guarded.

shomer: Keeper, guard, watchman.

שֹׁמֵר

This branch names the one who keeps watch, making the guarding in Shemariah’s name active and attentive.

mishmeret: Guard, watch, charge.

מִשְׁמֶרֶת

This branch describes a duty of keeping watch, showing how the same root can name both the act and its entrusted responsibility.

THE PATTERN

Keeping is active attention that guards a person along a path and preserves what is entrusted.

Look, I send a messenger before you to guard you in the way and to bring you to the place I have established.

Exodus 23:20 · SDVThe keeper goes ahead of the person, guarding a path toward a prepared place.

The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.

Psalm 121:7 · SDVPreserving is expressed as guarding that continues through every form of harm.

While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your nature. Those you gave me I have kept, and none of them has perished, but the son of perishing, that the writing might be filled full.

John 17:12 · SDVKeeping is named as watchfulness over those entrusted, with the verse also holding the loss it describes.

THE THREAD

The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.

Psalm 121:7 · SDV

The verb translated “preserve” comes from ⁨שׁמר⁩ (shamar, “guard, keep”), the same root carried inside ⁨שְׁמַרְיָה⁩ (Shemaryah, “the LORD has guarded”). The psalm unfolds in a sentence what this name compresses: the LORD keeps.

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