What Does Genesis 25:3 Mean?
And Jokshan brought forth Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.
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 Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.THE KEY
The line moves from one act of begetting to whole peoples, showing a family name opening into a shared human future.
THE MEANING
The verse holds ancestry as a movement: Jokshan begets Sheba and Dedan, and Dedan’s line opens into three named peoples. One generation gives rise to a wider human world.
THE ROOT
יָלַד
yalad
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
“brought forth” in this verse is yalad. The birth-root behind “begat” also forms words for a child and for generations. The verse’s motion is more than a list: begetting opens into descendants, then into peoples.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child or offspring.
יֶלֶד
The same root names the child brought forth by the act of begetting.
toledot: Generations or genealogies.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch extends birth into the unfolding line of descendants shown in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A line of descent unfolds from named ancestors into peoples and shared human communities.
These are the families of the sons of Noah, by their births, in their nations; and from these the nations were parted in the earth after the flood.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
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.“Generations” translates תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot), from the same ילד (y-l-d) root as “begat” here. Genesis 25:3 follows that movement in miniature: birth unfolds into descendants, then into peoples.
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