What Does Ezra 2:11 Mean?
The children of Bebai, six hundred and twenty-three.
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
The children of Bebai, six hundred twenty and three.THE KEY
The word for “children” is linked with building: this is a household taking shape through each counted generation.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a community in view through its ancestral name and exact count. Belonging takes shape through particular lives joined to a shared household.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
To build, establish.
The word for “children,” benei, echoes ben, “son,” in a word family linked with building. English gives a family label; the Hebrew also hints at a household built out through its descendants, here counted as a real community.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build, construct.
בָּנָה
The building root brings a household dimension to the word “children.”
binyan: Building, structure.
בִּנְיָן
A structure takes shape piece by piece, as this household appears in the verse through its counted members.
THE PATTERN
A dispersed people becomes visible as a community through gathering, naming, and counting its members.
And these are the children of the province who went up out of the exile, those who had been stripped bare, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had stripped bare and carried unto Babylon, and turned again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city.And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of every land where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their pastures; they shall bear fruit and multiply.In those days Peter stood up in the middle of the learners, and said, the crowd of names together was about one hundred and twenty.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders toil in emptiness. Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in emptiness.Psalm 127 uses the building root echoed by the word for “children.” Read together, the verses show a household as something built through its descendants, with its lasting strength held by the LORD.
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