What Does Genesis 5:16 Mean?
And Mahalalel lived after he brought forth Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and brought forth sons and daughters.
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 Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:THE KEY
A genealogy that looks like arithmetic also speaks in names: Mahalaleel, “praise of God,” brings forth Jared, “descent,” and life continues through more children.
THE MEANING
Your life belongs to a continuity larger than any single name: what you bring forth can continue alongside you, and the line reaches beyond its named heir. Here praise, descent, and unnamed sons and daughters all belong to one unfolding life.
THE ROOT
מַהֲלַלְאֵל
Mahalal'el
GROWS FROM
הלל
Praise; the name joins mahalal, praise, with El, God.
“Mahalaleel” in this verse is Mahalal'el. The name places praise inside this genealogy, where English leaves it opaque. The line begins with praise of God and moves into the next name, which carries the meaning of descent.
ALSO GROWS
hallel: Praise.
הַלֵּל
This shares the praise-root audible in Mahalaleel’s name.
hallelu-yah: Praise Yah.
הַלְלוּיָהּ
The familiar praise-word carries the same root as the first part of Mahalaleel.
יֶרֶד
Yered
GROWS FROM
ירד
To go down; to descend.
Jared’s name carries the meaning of descent into a verse about generations. The name makes the line’s movement visible: one life brings forth what follows it.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: To descend, go down.
יָרַד
This is the verb from which Jared’s name is understood.
yeridah: Descent.
יְרִידָה
This noun makes explicit the meaning carried in Jared’s name.
הוֹלִידוֹ
holido
GROWS FROM
ילד
To bear, give birth, or beget; to bring forth.
“brought forth” in this verse is holido. The verse uses this birth-root for Jared and again for the sons and daughters. The root keeps the named heir and the wider, unnamed family within the same act of bringing forth.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To bear, give birth, beget.
יָלַד
This is the root verb beneath both forms of “begat” in the verse.
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The noun for a child grows from the same root as the act of begetting.
toledot: Generations, descendants.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This root also names the generations that make up the genealogical line.
THE PATTERN
Life in Scripture moves through generations: what is brought forth in one life extends into the lives that follow.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.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 root, ילד (yalad), underlies “begat” in both verses, and each life continues after a child is born. Genesis 5:3 makes the passage of likeness visible: what is brought forth carries something of the life before it.
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