What Does Genesis 10:22 Mean?
The sons of Shem were Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.
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 Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.THE KEY
Shem’s Hebrew name שֵׁם (shem), meaning “name,” is followed by five names that carry his line forward.
THE MEANING
Your identity is not only a label standing alone: this verse places a name inside a continuing line of names. Shem’s name carries forward through five branches, presenting belonging as something held through relation and continuity.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
Build, establish by building.
The phrase “children of Shem” uses בְּנֵי (benei), “sons” or “children,” from the ben/b-n-h word family associated with building. English can make descendants sound like a count; this root carries the image of a family structure built forward. Shem (שֵׁם, shem) means “name,” so the verse holds identity in both a name and the line that continues it.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son, child.
בֵּן
This is the singular word behind the verse’s “children,” placing each descendant within a family line.
banah: To build.
בָּנָה
Its association with “son” brings a building image to the lineage: each generation carries the family forward.
binyan: Building, structure.
בִּנְיָן
This related form makes the structural image explicit: the names in the verse form a line held together across generations.
THE PATTERN
A line of names carries identity forward through generations.
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.Now these are the births of Perez. Perez brought forth Hezron.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.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 Hebrew behind “obtain children” uses the same building root, בנה (b-n-h), and can be heard as “be built up.” Beside Shem’s descendants here, it reveals lineage as a structure carried forward through children.
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