What Does Ezra 2:14 Mean?
The children of Bigvai, two thousand and fifty-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 Bigvai, two thousand fifty and six.THE KEY
The name comes before the number, so the tally stays attached to belonging.
THE MEANING
This line holds belonging and number together: a people are identified through Bigvai, then counted. Your life can be part of a larger continuity without disappearing into its total.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being counted makes you interchangeable. Here, the family name remains attached to the number.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build, establish; the word for son is traditionally associated with building.
The Hebrew for “children” is formed from ben, “son,” and is traditionally linked with banah, “build.” The line names the people through family before giving their number, so the tally also evokes a household built and carried through its descendants.
ALSO GROWS
ben: son, descendant
בֵּן
The plural construct benei identifies this group by its relation to Bigvai.
banah: build, establish
בָּנָה
Its traditional association with ben suggests a family taking shape and continuing through its descendants.
binyan: building, structure
בִּנְיָן
This related form gives the root’s building image a concrete shape: a family line is a structure carried by many people.
THE PATTERN
A count can preserve identity when it keeps names and belonging attached to the number.
Lift up the head of all the assembly of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, by the number of their names, every male, head by head.He counts the number of the stars; he calls each of them by name.But even the hairs of your head are all counted.THE THREAD
The children of Bigvai, two thousand and sixty-seven.The same Hebrew wording, “children of Bigvai,” appears here with a different total: 2,067 rather than 2,056. The family identity remains while the recorded count shifts, making the number a detail within the lineage rather than its definition.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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