What Does Ezra 2:38 Mean?
The children of Pashur, one thousand two hundred and forty-seven.
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 Pashur, a thousand two hundred forty and seven.THE KEY
The count makes a family line visible as something built across generations, not an anonymous crowd.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a family line in view through a number: these descendants belong to a named lineage within the whole. Continuity is present now in the lives carried forward from those who came before.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build; establish a structure.
“children” in this verse is bənê. Here, בְּנֵי means the descendants belonging to Pashur. The word for son, בֵּן (ben), is commonly connected with בָּנָה (banah, build), so the counted descendants can also be heard as the building of a continuing family line.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build
בָּנָה
This is the root commonly associated with ben, son, bringing the image of building into the word for descendants.
binyan: Building or structure
בִּנְיָן
This noun from the same root makes the family-line image concrete: descendants form a structure carried through generations.
THE PATTERN
A count can hold a whole in view while tracing its members and belonging.
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 phrase rendered “obtain children” uses a form of בנה (banah, build). It shares the root commonly associated with בֵּן (ben, son), bringing the building image into Ezra’s counted family line.
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