What Does Genesis 25:2 Mean?
And she bore him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.
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 she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “bare” shares its seed with “child” and “kinship,” so birth already carries the lives and relationships that follow.
THE MEANING
One act of bringing forth opens into six distinct named lives, each belonging to one family line without being reduced to a number. The verse holds both their shared origin and their separate identities.
THE ROOT
וַתֵּלֶד
vattēled
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
“bore” in this verse is vattēled. English makes “bare” sound like a completed event, but ילד also grows into “child” and “kinship”: the act and the life it brings forth remain joined. The six names read as distinct branches of that continuing birth.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child
יֶלֶד
The verb “she bore” and the noun “child” share the same root, joining the act of birth to the life that follows.
moledet: Kindred, birthplace, or native land
מוֹלֶדֶת
This branch extends bringing forth into belonging: birth is connected to kinship and the place one comes from.
THE PATTERN
A life brought forth enters a named, relational lineage rather than remaining an anonymous count.
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.But the messenger said to him, Do not be seized by awe, Zacharias, for your need has been heard and answered; and your wife Elisabeth will bring forth a son for you, and you will call his name John.THE THREAD
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.Genesis 4 uses the same Hebrew root ילד (yalad, “bear” or “bring forth”) for Eve’s bearing Cain. Here that birth-word opens onto six separately named sons, showing how one act of bringing forth carries distinct lives forward.
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