What Does Ezra 2:13 Mean?
The children of Adonikam, six hundred and sixty-six.
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 Adonikam, six hundred sixty and six.THE KEY
Here, 666 is first a headcount attached to a family name: the number does not stand alone.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a large number of people together with the name of the family they belong to. Your life, too, is more than a number: being counted can sit alongside being known and connected.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The number 666 does not carry the same meaning everywhere it appears; here it counts Adonikam’s children.
THE ROOT
אֲדֹנִיקָם
ʾAdoniqam
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, or be established.
Adonikam is commonly understood as “my lord has arisen,” with its final element drawn from קום, the root for rising or standing. The verse gives the number 666 to a family identified by a name that carries this image of rising.
ALSO GROWS
qām: Rose or stood.
קָם
This form echoes the rising carried in the name Adonikam.
hēqîm: Raised up or established.
הֵקִים
The root connects the name’s rising with the idea of being set upright or made to stand.
maqōm: A place or standing place.
מָקוֹם
This branch shows how the root of standing also gives Hebrew a word for a place where one stands.
THE PATTERN
Being numbered does not erase particularity: scripture holds count and being known together.
He counts the number of the stars; he calls each of them by name.But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not shrink, for you surpass many sparrows.To him the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear and respond to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.THE THREAD
He raises the bowed one from the dust, and lifts the one in want from the ash heap;Adonikam is commonly read as “my lord has arisen,” ending in קום (q-w-m), the root behind “raiseth up.” Psalm 113:7 uses that same root for lifting the poor, opening the name in Ezra as an image of rising.
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