What Does Genesis 5:12 Mean?
And Kenan lived seventy years, and brought forth Mahalalel.
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 Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel:THE KEY
The genealogy places “praise of God” on the far side of a human life, making praise the name the next generation carries.
THE MEANING
A life is set beside what it brings forth: Cainan lives, and Mahalaleel follows, a name carrying “praise of God.” Your years belong to this movement of life continuing beyond the one who bears it, with the next name giving that continuation a sound of praise.
THE ROOT
מַהֲלַלְאֵל
Mahalal'el
GROWS FROM
הלל
Praise; to praise or celebrate.
“Mahalaleel” in this verse is Mahalal'el. The name joins מַהֲלָל (mahalal, “praise”) with אֵל (El, “God”) to form “praise of God.” The genealogy does more than identify Cainan’s son: it gives the next life a name that carries praise.
ALSO GROWS
hallel: Praise; an act of praising.
הַלֵּל
This word shares the name’s praise-root, so Mahalaleel carries the same idea as an act of praise.
tehillah: Praise; a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
This branch shows praise taking voiced form, echoing how the next generation’s name speaks praise into the lineage.
וַיּוֹלֶד
wayyoled
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, beget, or bring forth.
The same root names both the act of bringing forth and what is brought forth. The verse’s genealogy is built around this movement: one life gives rise to another, whose name carries its own meaning.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The child is named from the same root as the act of begetting, joining the verb and its result in one word family.
toledot: Generations; descendants or family history.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch names the unfolding line of lives that the verse’s begetting continues.
THE PATTERN
Life moves forward through what it brings forth, and what it brings forth carries the line onward.
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.And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and brought forth Salah.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.The same Hebrew root ילד (yalad, “to beget” or “bring forth”) carries both verses’ “begat.” Genesis 5:3 adds that the child bears the parent’s likeness, letting this sparse record of Cainan’s life read as a transmission of life, not a bare count of years.
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