What Does Ezra 2:22 Mean?
The men of Netophah, 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 men of Netophah, fifty and six.THE KEY
Netophah’s Hebrew name may echo נָטַף (nāṭap̄, “to drip”): the count stays attached to a place whose name can carry the image of a trickle.
THE MEANING
This line keeps a count connected to a place: fifty-six men are identified with Netophah, rather than left as an abstract total. The name is commonly linked with the image of dripping, though the verse does not explain its origin. The place and its people remain held together in the count.
THE ROOT
נְטֹפָה
Nəṭōp̄āh
GROWS FROM
נטף
To drip, to drop (nāṭap̄).
Netophah is commonly connected with נָטַף (nāṭap̄), “to drip, to drop,” though the verse itself does not give an etymology. That possible echo sets the named people beside the image of drops gathered at a source, while the line preserves their place and number.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭap̄: To drip; to drop.
נָטַף
This verb supplies the action behind the name’s commonly proposed connection to the root.
nōṭēp̄: Dripping; one who drips.
נֹטֵף
This form keeps the same נ־ט־ף consonants and describes something by the root’s action.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes a people visible by holding a concrete count beside a concrete belonging.
The children of Bethlehem, one hundred and twenty-three.The men of Bethlehem and Netophah, one hundred and eighty-eight.Then those who gladly took his word in were immersed, and that day about three thousand living souls were added to them.THE THREAD
The men of Bethlehem and Netophah, one hundred and eighty-eight.Here Netophah stands beside Bethlehem, and both place-names remain visible within one count. Ezra gives Netophah its own number; this verse holds the same place in a larger joined total.
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