What Does Genesis 46:13 Mean?
And the sons of Issachar, Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.
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 the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.THE KEY
Issachar’s name carries the word for wages into this family record, preserving the story behind the name alongside the person.
THE MEANING
This verse gives you a family line one named person at a time. Issachar’s name recalls hire or recompense, while Shimron’s echoes keeping and guarding. You meet the verse as someone whose identity, too, is carried within stories that came before you.
THE ROOT
יִשָּׂשכָר
Yissakhar
GROWS FROM
שכר
Hire, wages, or recompense.
Issachar’s name carries the root for wages or recompense. Genesis 30:18 uses this same word when Leah says, “God hath given me my hire,” so the name preserves the story of how she understood his birth.
ALSO GROWS
sākār: Wages, hire, or recompense.
שָׂכָר
This is the word Leah uses when she explains Issachar’s name in Genesis 30:18.
sākîr: A hired worker.
שָׂכִיר
This related form keeps the idea of hire in view, showing how the root links a person’s name with the language of wages.
שִׁמְרֹן
Shimron
GROWS FROM
שמר
Keep, guard, or watch over.
Shimron belongs to the word-family of keeping and guarding, so the name carries watchfulness within this list of sons. The root appears in words for both a watchman and a charge entrusted to someone’s care.
ALSO GROWS
shōmēr: A keeper, guard, or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the guarding sense carried by Shimron’s name more visible.
mishmeret: A guard, watch, or charge to keep.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch shows the root can describe what is watched over as well as the act of guarding.
THE PATTERN
A name can preserve the event or quality through which its bearer is understood.
And Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I have given my maidservant to my husband. And she called his name Issachar, wages.And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, the one drawn out, and she said, Because from the waters I drew him out.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 Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I have given my maidservant to my husband. And she called his name Issachar, wages.Genesis 30:18 makes the root behind Issachar’s name explicit: Leah says God has given her שְׂכָרִי (sekari), “my hire.” In Genesis 46:13, that name carries the same word-family forward in the family line.
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