What Does Ezra 2:61 Mean?
And of the children of the priests, the children of Habaiah, the children of Koz, the children of Barzillai, who took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called after their name.
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
And of the children of the priests: the children of Habaiah, the children of Koz, the children of Barzillai; which took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called after their name:THE KEY
A name can carry a household’s belonging beyond blood: this priestly descendant is known by the family joined through marriage.
THE MEANING
Origin and belonging can coexist: a person carries the lineage they inherit and can also be known by the household bond they enter. Here, the name publicly marks that bond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that inherited lineage is the only part of identity that shapes how a person is known; a bond entered can shape it too.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקָּרֵא
wayyiqqārē
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call out, name, proclaim, or read aloud.
The Hebrew word for “was called” comes from qara, whose reach includes naming and proclaiming. The name is an act of recognition: this descendant is publicly known through the household whose name he bears.
ALSO GROWS
qeri'ah: Calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
The same root links naming with words spoken or read aloud, making a name something voiced into recognition.
miqra: A reading, proclamation, or convocation.
מִקְרָא
The root extends from naming a person to calling people together, joining identity with belonging.
THE PATTERN
A name in Scripture can mark the identity and belonging that a relationship speaks over someone.
But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and who shaped you, O Israel. Do not fear, for I have bought you back; I have called you by your name; you are mine.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.And he led him to Jesus. And Jesus, fixing his gaze on him, said, You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas, the rock.THE THREAD
But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and who shaped you, O Israel. Do not fear, for I have bought you back; I have called you by your name; you are mine.Ezra’s “was called” and Isaiah’s “called” come from קרא (qara), meaning to call or name. Isaiah joins that calling to belonging, opening the name in Ezra as a marker of the household bond through which this descendant is recognized.
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