What Does Genesis 10:11 Mean?
From that land went out Asshur, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah.
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
Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,THE KEY
Rehoboth means “broad places,” making spaciousness part of the city’s name.
THE MEANING
Departure takes shape as a built city, and one city bears a name meaning “broad places.” The verse lets room and spaciousness be part of what is built.
THE ROOT
רְחֹבוֹת
Rechovot
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
To become wide or spacious; the root gives rise to words for open, broad places.
English keeps Rehoboth as a place-name, while Hebrew also lets it read as “broad places.” The city carries spaciousness in its name, echoing the same root used for a broad place where distress gives way to room.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥaḇ: To become wide or spacious.
רָחַב
This verb gives the city-name its sense of breadth: Rehoboth is named for spaciousness.
merḥav: A broad place; an open expanse.
מֶרְחָב
This noun appears in Psalm 118:5 for the large place where the speaker is set, showing the root’s movement from a name to lived room.
rəḥōḇ: A street or open square.
רְחֹב
The branch suggests that the root’s breadth can describe shared, usable space within a settlement.
THE PATTERN
Across Scripture, widening becomes an image of room opened within distress, place, and even the heart.
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.O Corinthians, our mouth is open toward you, our heart is widened.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The “large place,” מֶרְחָב (merḥav, broad place), shares the רחב (r-ḥ-b, become spacious) root with Rehoboth. Here that breadth becomes a movement from distress into room.
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