What Does Genesis 5:32 Mean?
And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah brought forth Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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 Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.THE KEY
At five hundred, Noah’s life is not an endpoint; it is the source of three named futures.
THE MEANING
A life can still stand at a threshold: what it has carried for a long time can open into distinct beginnings. Three names emerge from one father, each holding a separate line of what comes next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a life only repeats its past gives way to the possibility that new lines can emerge from it.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹלֶד
wayyoled
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To beget, bear, or bring forth.
The root behind “begat” also shapes the word for “generations,” so a family line is described as an unfolding of births. The verse’s three sons are not only names in a list; they are the beginning of what will be brought forth through them.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To bear or beget.
יָלַד
This is the verb’s basic action, the root of Noah’s becoming a father.
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
The same root holds both the act of bringing forth and the child who emerges.
toledot: Generations or begettings.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The word for a line of generations grows from this same root of birth.
נֹחַ
Noach
GROWS FROM
נוח
n-w-ḥ
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
Noah’s name is associated with נוּחַ (nuach, rest or settle). The root’s branches include setting something down and a place of rest, so the father at the head of these new lines carries the sense of what settles and makes room for what follows.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: To rest or settle.
נוּחַ
This is the root associated with Noah’s name and gives the name a sense of settling.
heniach: To set down or cause to rest.
הֵנִיחַ
This form shows rest as something placed or allowed to settle.
menuchah: Rest or resting place.
מְנוּחָה
The root can name not only the act of resting but also the place where rest is found.
שֵׁם
shem
GROWS FROM
שֵׁם
lexical stem
Name, renown, or recognized nature.
Shem’s name is itself the Hebrew word for “name.” One of Noah’s sons is literally named Name, so the genealogy makes naming and identity part of what emerges from this father.
ALSO GROWS
shem: Name or renown.
שֵׁם
The son’s name is also the Hebrew word that means name.
shemot: Names.
שֵׁמוֹת
The plural carries the same word into the naming of many people.
shem tov: A good name or reputation.
שֵׁם טוֹב
A name can also hold the character by which a person is known.
THE PATTERN
A named life becomes a branching lineage whose descendants carry the story forward.
These three are the sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was scattered.These are the births of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
These are the births of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and sons were born to them after the flood.“Generations” is תּוֹלְדוֹת (toledot), from the same ילד (yalad, beget) root as “begat” here. The three births are the opening of an expanding record, not its end.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us