What Does Ezra 2:31 Mean?
The children of the other Elam, one thousand two hundred and fifty-four.
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 the other Elam, a thousand two hundred fifty and four.THE KEY
The second Elam has the same count as the first, yet the text keeps its lineage distinct.
THE MEANING
A people becomes visible through its distinct lines: this branch is named as another Elam and counted as 1,254. The number gives the returning community shape without making its families interchangeable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A matching count does not make two lineages the same: Ezra 2:7 also counts 1,254 under Elam, while this verse names the other Elam separately.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
Build, establish.
The word for children belongs to the ben family, traditionally associated with banah, “to build.” Here the counted children are more than a headcount: they are the living continuation through which a people is built across generations.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son, child.
בֵּן
The singular form shows the family line carried by each child in the count.
banah: Build, establish.
בָּנָה
This branch reveals the image beneath lineage: a people takes shape through the lives that continue it.
binyan: Building, structure.
בִּנְיָן
The shared word family gives the count a structural meaning: these lives form part of a continuing people.
THE PATTERN
A people becomes visible as its members are gathered, named, and counted into a shared life.
All the assembly together was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty.The LORD counts when he writes up the peoples; this one is born there. Selah.Then those who gladly took his word in were immersed, and that day about three thousand living souls were added to them.THE THREAD
Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.“Children” here and “children” in Ezra belong to the ben word family, traditionally linked with banah, “to build.” Ezra counts a lineage; this verse shows why that continuity carries weight: children are part of how a people is built forward.
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