What Does Genesis 10:18 Mean?
And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterward the families of the Canaanites were scattered.
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 the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.THE KEY
A shared lineage takes shape here as families disperse across places.
THE MEANING
A people can remain connected as its families spread into different places. Distance changes where they live, while the verse still names them as families of one people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a people must remain in one place to remain one people.
THE ROOT
נָפֹצוּ
nāphōtsû
GROWS FROM
פוץ
Scatter; disperse.
Here, נָפֹצוּ (nāphōtsû) describes the families as dispersed; Genesis 11:8 uses the same root in an active form for scattering a people. The Hebrew holds the state of being scattered and the act of scattering within one verbal family, making dispersion a way a lineage occupies the world.
ALSO GROWS
nāphōtsû: A form describing people as scattered across places.
נָפֹצוּ
This is the form used for the Canaanite families, so their spread remains tied to a shared lineage.
wayyāpeṣ: An active form meaning to scatter or disperse.
וַיָּפֶץ
In Genesis 11:8, the same root names the act of scattering, connecting the families’ dispersed state with the movement that spreads a people outward.
THE PATTERN
Scattering carries a people from one place into many regions.
So the LORD scattered them from there across the face of all the earth; and they let go of building the city.And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the LORD shall lead you.And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great pursuit came against the assembly which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered through the lands of Judea and Samaria, except the sent ones.THE THREAD
So the LORD scattered them from there across the face of all the earth; and they let go of building the city.Genesis 10:18 uses נָפֹצוּ (nāphōtsû), “were dispersed,” from פוץ (pûṣ), “scatter, disperse.” Genesis 11:8 uses the same root for the act of scattering, linking dispersed families with a people spread across the earth.
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