What Does Genesis 10:3 Mean?

And the sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

Genesis 10:3 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.

THE KEY

Gomer’s name resonates with completion, yet the verse shows a line opening into three more names.

THE MEANING

This verse places Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah within Gomer’s line. Belonging appears as a chain, with each generation named in relation to the one before it.

THE ROOT

גֹּמֶר

Gomer

GROWS FROM

גמר

To complete or bring to an end.

Gomer is commonly associated with ⁨גמר⁩, the Hebrew root for completion. Here, a name resonating with completion is followed by three names that open the next generation; the resonance does not mean the lineage ends here.

ALSO GROWS

gāmar: To complete; to bring to an end.

גָּמַר

This verb makes the root’s action explicit: bringing something to completion.

yigmor: He will complete; he will perfect.

יִגְמֹר

The same root appears in Psalm 138:8, where the LORD will “perfect” what concerns the speaker.

THE PATTERN

Scripture makes lineage visible by naming who comes from whom.

And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and brought forth a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth.

Genesis 5:3 · SDVSeth’s name is placed within a line through his relation to Adam.

Now these are the births of Perez. Perez brought forth Hezron.

Ruth 4:18 · SDVThe verse begins a named sequence that shows one generation continuing through another.

The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:1 · SDVThe opening names Jesus within a lineage traced through David and Abraham.

THE THREAD

The LORD finishes what concerns me; your faithful love, O LORD, endures for the ages; do not let the works of your hands drop.

Psalm 138:8 · SDV

Gomer is associated with ⁨גמר⁩ (gāmar, to complete), the root behind “perfect” here. The same consonants that resonate in a name become an explicit action: the LORD completes what concerns the speaker.

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