What Does Ezra 2:30 Mean?
The children of Magbish, one hundred 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 Magbish, an hundred fifty and six.THE KEY
The name Magbish is commonly traced to a root meaning “congeal,” so the verse counts a gathered people under one name.
THE MEANING
You belong to a named people before you appear as a count. Here, the count records a shared line without dissolving it into anonymity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being counted means being reduced to a number.
THE ROOT
מַגְבִּישׁ
Magbish
GROWS FROM
גבש
g-b-sh
To congeal or thicken; by extension, to gather into a compact mass.
Magbish is commonly linked to this root, giving the name an image of parts drawn together. The verse then names and numbers the group, keeping its gathered identity visible.
ALSO GROWS
gābash: To congeal or gather together.
גָּבַשׁ
This verb supplies the name’s image of a group held together.
gābish: Crystal.
גָּבִישׁ
The word’s image of matter congealed into visible form echoes how the verse gives a gathered people a distinct name and number.
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build or establish.
The word for children belongs to a Hebrew word family traditionally linked with building. The counted children are not isolated units; they are the living continuation through which a household is built.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son or child.
בֵּן
This is the singular family word behind the verse’s plural “children.”
banah: To build or establish.
בָּנָה
Its shared word family lends the children a house-building resonance: a people continues through its children.
THE PATTERN
A people can be held as a whole while each person remains named and counted.
The LORD counts when he writes up the peoples; this one is born there. Selah.For where two or three are gathered together in my nature, there I am in the midst of them.So we, though many, are one body in the Anointed One, and each of us is a limb of one another.THE THREAD
Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.Ezra names a line’s children; this verse names children as an inheritance. Both use the Hebrew word family of ben, child, traditionally linked with banah, to build: the children are part of how a people is built.
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