What Does Ezra 2:17 Mean?
The children of Bezai, three 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 Bezai, three hundred twenty and three.THE KEY
Hebrew hears “children” and “building” in the same root: the 323 are a household made visible as a family line.
THE MEANING
A community becomes visible one family at a time: Bezai’s household has a name and a count. The count holds this group together without making it faceless; belonging is both shared and particular.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bnei
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
בָּנָה (banah): to build, establish.
The Hebrew בְּנֵי (bnei, sons or descendants) is tied to בָּנָה (banah, to build): a family line can be pictured as a household built across generations. English “children” preserves the kinship but leaves that building image out of view.
ALSO GROWS
ben: The singular form behind בְּנֵי (bnei): a son, descendant, or member of a family line.
בֵּן
The count identifies the household through the people who carry its family line.
’ibbaneh: A form of בנה meaning to be built or established.
אִבָּנֶה
In Genesis 16:2, family growth is pictured as being built; the same root deepens this household count.
THE PATTERN
A count makes a gathered whole visible while names preserve its particular identity.
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 very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not shrink, for you surpass many sparrows.THE THREAD
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.The Hebrew phrase translated “obtain children” uses אִבָּנֶה (’ibbaneh), “I may be built up,” from בנה (banah), “to build.” Ezra’s “children of Bezai” carries that same family-building resonance: one household is named as part of a people taking shape.
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