What Does Genesis 11:20 Mean?
And Reu lived two and thirty years, and brought forth Serug.
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 Reu lived two and thirty years, and begat Serug:THE KEY
The verse turns Reu’s age into a passage: he lives, and his life brings forth the next name.
THE MEANING
A life is not sealed inside its own years; it can open into what comes after it. Here, Reu’s thirty-two years lead to Serug, and the verse holds one person’s span together with its continuation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A life is only the years one person personally occupies.
THE ROOT
וַיְחִי
vayechi
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah
To live, to be alive.
“lived” in this verse is vayechi. The verb belongs to the same root as words for being alive and for life itself. The verse presents Reu’s years as living time that opens into another life, not only as a tally of years.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Alive, living.
חַי
This branch makes the verse’s “lived” part of the language of being alive, not merely the passage of time.
chayyim: Life, or lives.
חַיִּים
This branch holds life as a continuing reality, echoing how Reu’s life leads into Serug’s.
וַיּוֹלֶד
vayoled
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
To bear, give birth, or beget.
“brought forth” in this verse is vayoled. The root behind “begat” also forms words for a child and for generations. English can make this sound like a bare entry in a list; the Hebrew keeps the act of begetting connected to the unfolding line.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
This branch shows the person who is born within the verb translated “begat.”
toledot: Generations, descendants, or genealogical account.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch connects one act of begetting to the generations that continue from it.
רְעוּ
Re'u
GROWS FROM
רעה
ra'ah
To tend or pasture; by extension, to associate with or keep company.
Reu’s name is traditionally associated with this root’s field of tending and companionship. In the verse, his life reaches toward another named life, so the genealogy holds people in relation rather than isolation.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: Shepherd, one who tends.
רֹעֶה
This branch carries the root’s sense of tending, a form of care that connects one life to another.
rea: Companion, friend.
רֵעַ
This branch brings the name’s association with companionship into the verse’s linked succession of lives.
THE PATTERN
Life opens beyond its own span by giving rise to what continues after it.
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.The living, the living, he will thank you, as I do this day; the father to the children will make your truth known.Truly, truly, I say to you. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.THE THREAD
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.This verse uses the same Hebrew root ילד (yalad, to bear or beget) behind “begat.” There, the continuation is shown as a son carrying Adam’s likeness; here, the same movement is compressed into Reu and Serug.
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