What Does Genesis 10:21 Mean?
To Shem also, the father of all the sons of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, sons were born.
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
Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.THE KEY
Shem (שֵׁם, shem: “name”) is named as the father of Eber (עֵבֶר, ʿēber: “crossing, the region beyond”), so the line passes on a name whose sound carries passage.
THE MEANING
This verse holds identity in relationship: Shem is named as father, brother, and ancestor, and the line continues as children are born. Your name, too, lives within relationships and inheritances that reach beyond your individual life. Eber’s name carries the sense of crossing over, so this lineage bears both belonging and passage.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A name is only a private label, detached from the people and passages that shape a life.
THE ROOT
עֵבֶר
ʿēber
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
ʿ-b-r
To pass over, cross, or go beyond; עֵבֶר can also mean the far side or region beyond.
Eber’s name echoes the Hebrew verb for crossing over. The shared root lets this lineage carry an image of passage: identity travels from one generation into the next.
ALSO GROWS
ʿābar: To pass over, cross, or pass by.
עָבַר
The verb makes the movement inside Eber’s name audible.
ʿivrî: Hebrew; a person identified with Eber or with what lies beyond.
עִבְרִי
The related people-name carries the same consonants, keeping the sense of crossing or beyond within an identity.
maʿābār: A crossing or passage.
מַעֲבָר
This branch makes the root’s movement concrete: a passage from one side to another.
שֵׁם
shem
GROWS FROM
שם
Name, designation, or reputation; no distinct three-consonant root is securely identified for this noun.
The verse begins with Shem, whose name is the Hebrew word for “name.” He is identified through kinship and descendants, so a name here is carried in the relationships attached to it.
ALSO GROWS
shēmōt: Names.
שֵׁמוֹת
This plural form shows the word’s direct extension from one name to many named people.
shēm ṭōv: A good name or reputation.
שֵׁם טוֹב
This phrase shows how “name” can carry the character by which someone is remembered.
יֻלַּד
yullad
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To beget, bear, or bring forth; in this form, “was born.”
“sons were born” in this verse is yullad. The verse closes with birth, so the genealogy is a chain of bringing forth rather than a static list. The same root gives both “child” and “generations,” binding each new life to the line that continues through it.
ALSO GROWS
yālad: To beget or give birth.
יָלַד
This verb names the act of bringing the next generation forth.
yeled: A child.
יֶלֶד
The child is the person brought forth by the root’s action.
tōledōt: Generations or descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This word names the continuing line that the verse traces.
THE PATTERN
A name becomes a living thread when kinship carries it from one generation to the next.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.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.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And there came one who had slipped free, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he settled in the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner; and these were bound to Abram by covenant.Eber’s name echoes עבר (ʿ-b-r), “to cross over” or “go beyond.” “Hebrew” (עִבְרִי, ʿivrî) shares those consonants and is commonly connected with Eber or the sense of crossing; Genesis 14:13 carries that family sound into Abram’s name.
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