What Does Ezra 2:25 Mean?
The children of Kirjatharim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty-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 Kirjath-arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty and three.THE KEY
The tally is exact, yet the people remain more than a number: their forest-city and well names stay in the record.
THE MEANING
You are not reduced to a total when you are gathered into a people. The count is precise, and the names of the places these people belong to remain beside it. Belonging can stay particular inside a larger whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that being counted means becoming anonymous: it gives the number and preserves the place names together.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
Build, establish.
“children of; people belonging to” in this verse is bənê. The word rendered “children” means sons or descendants of, and belongs to the Hebrew word family associated with building. Here “children of” also names people by their towns, so belonging is carried by a place as well as by a family line.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son; a member of a family.
בֵּן
The singular form makes the family sense of “children of” visible.
banah: Build; establish.
בָּנָה
This related form lets the word for family carry the image of a lineage built across generations.
יְעָרִים
yeʿārîm
GROWS FROM
יער
y-ʿ-r
Forest, woodland.
The name Kirjath-arim preserves a landscape within the census: a city of forests. The place is not merely a label; its name carries the terrain into the people’s recorded identity.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿar: Forest; woodland.
יַעַר
The singular names the landscape held inside the place name.
yeʿārîm: Forests.
יְעָרִים
This plural form appears in the name and keeps that landscape audible in the list.
בְּאֵרוֹת
beʾērôt
GROWS FROM
באר
b-ʾ-r
Well; a water source.
Beeroth means “wells,” so a source of water is embedded in the name of this group’s place. Alongside the forest-city, the list keeps concrete features of place attached to the people being counted.
ALSO GROWS
beʾēr: Well.
בְּאֵר
The singular form names the water source contained in the place name.
beʾērôt: Wells.
בְּאֵרוֹת
The plural form is the name Beeroth and preserves that image in the census.
THE PATTERN
A gathered people can be counted precisely while their places of belonging remain named.
The LORD counts when he writes up the peoples; this one is born there. Selah.And there were Jews settled in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven.So the priests, and the Levites, and some of the people, and the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the given ones, settled in their cities, and all Israel in their cities.THE THREAD
The men of Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty-three.Nehemiah preserves the same three place names and the same number in its account of the people. The parallel keeps the names and tally joined, so this community remains more than an anonymous total.
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