What Does Genesis 25:1 Mean?
Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.
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
Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah.THE KEY
The verse’s “again” carries the sense of adding, and Keturah’s name evokes incense: Abraham’s continuation is named as fragrance rising.
THE MEANING
Abraham takes a wife again, and the verse gives her a name linked to incense. Keturah is connected to the root qatar, “to burn incense, to send up smoke,” so this new bond enters the text under the image of fragrance rising from fire. The word translated “again” also comes from a root meaning “add,” so continuation appears as an addition.
THE ROOT
קְטוּרָה
Qeturah
GROWS FROM
קטר
q-ṭ-r
Burn incense; emit smoke.
Keturah is commonly linked to qatar, the root for burning incense and sending up smoke; qetoret, “incense,” shares its consonants. Her name carries the image of fragrance rising from a fire, so the verse’s new marriage arrives under a name with an action inside it.
ALSO GROWS
qetoret: Incense.
קְטֹרֶת
This noun shares the root consonants and makes the image carried by Keturah’s name concrete.
hiqṭîr: To burn or offer incense.
הִקְטִיר
This verb shows the action beneath the name: burning that sends smoke upward.
וַיֹּסֶף
vayyosef
GROWS FROM
יסף
y-s-f
Add, increase, continue.
The word translated “again” comes from yasaf, “to add.” The verse presents continuation as addition: Abraham’s life includes another marriage without the word itself meaning a mere repetition.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: May he add.
יוֹסֵף
Joseph’s name comes from the same root, letting “again” echo as a name for addition.
yôsîp: He will add.
יוֹסִיף
This verb form makes the root’s sense of increase explicit.
THE PATTERN
A scriptural name can carry the action or quality the text associates with its bearer.
And she called his name Joseph, may he add, and said, The LORD shall add to me another son.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
And you shall make an altar for smoke to rise upon; of acacia wood shall you make it.Keturah is commonly connected to קטר (qatar), the same root behind “burn incense” here. The shared root lets her name carry the image of fragrance rising from what burns, revealing an action beneath what might look like a bare label.
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