What Does Genesis 5:30 Mean?
And Lamech lived after he brought forth Noah five hundred and ninety-five 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 Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:THE KEY
Noah’s name carries rest, yet the verse makes that rest the center of a life that keeps bringing forth more life.
THE MEANING
Here, a name meaning rest sits inside a life still unfolding: the years continue, and sons and daughters continue to come forth. Your life, too, is not reduced to one defining arrival; what is named as rest can stand within a continuing story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Rest does not mean that life has ended, and one defining arrival does not exhaust what can still come forth.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹלֶד
vayyōleḏ
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
to bear, beget, or bring forth
“brought forth” in this verse is vayyōleḏ. The verse repeats this root: Lamech begets Noah, then keeps begetting sons and daughters. The Hebrew word family reaches from the act of bringing forth to the child and the generations that follow.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The child is already present in the root of the act that brings new life forth.
toledot: generations; the account of descendants
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The repeated begetting opens into a continuing line, not a single birth.
נֹחַ
Nōaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
n-w-ḥ
to rest, settle, or come to rest
Noah’s name belongs to the root נוח (n-w-ḥ, to rest or settle), the same family heard when the ark later “rested.” The name is more than a label: rest is embedded in the person whose line continues here.
ALSO GROWS
menūḥāh: rest, repose, resting place
מְנוּחָה
This branch makes the name’s quiet promise concrete: rest can be a place of settling within a life that continues.
hēnîaḥ: to cause to rest; to set down
הֵנִיחַ
The root can name the act of bringing something to rest, as the flood story later does with the ark.
THE PATTERN
A named turning point in a life can become the beginning of further generations.
And the days of Adam after he brought forth Seth were eight hundred years, and he brought forth sons and daughters.And Shem lived after he brought forth Arphaxad five hundred years, and brought forth sons and daughters.And these things you heard from me among many witnesses, place beside steady people who will be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.Noah (נֹחַ, Nōaḥ, rest) and the ark’s “rested” share the root נוח (n-w-ḥ, to rest or settle). The name appears here within a life still bringing forth descendants; later, that same root names the ark’s settling after the flood.
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