What Does 1 Chronicles 4:9 Mean in the King James?
And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Jabez carries a name tied to sorrow, yet the verse calls him weightier than his brothers: pain marks his beginning, not his measure.
THE MEANING
A painful beginning can be real without becoming the whole measure of a life. This verse holds sorrow beside a life marked by weight and honor.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A painful beginning permanently determines a person’s worth and identity.
THE ROOT
נִכְבָּד
nikhbad
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to carry importance and honor.
The Hebrew word for “honourable” carries the sense of weight and substance. That makes the verse’s contrast vivid: a name linked to sorrow does not tell the whole measure of Jabez.
ALSO GROWS
kāvēd: Heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
This is the concrete weight beneath the honor attributed to Jabez.
kāvōd: Weight, honor, glory
כָּבוֹד
It shows the same root reaching from physical weight to the importance or honor a person carries.
עֹצֶב
ʿōṣeb
GROWS FROM
עצב
ʿ-ṣ-b
Pain or grief; to feel or cause sorrow.
The verse links Jabez’s name to sorrow through wordplay, though the name and the sorrow word are not identical root-forms. The link lets the pain of his beginning remain visible while the description of his life exceeds it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṣab: To grieve or cause grief
עָצַב
The sorrow here is more than a label: this branch names grief as something felt or caused.
ʿiṣṣāvōn: Painful toil, sorrow
עִצָּבוֹן
This branch shows the root’s reach into pain that accompanies a person’s experience.
THE PATTERN
Sorrow can mark a life’s beginning without becoming the full measure of that life.
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.Both verses place a sorrow-shaped name beside a life that cannot be contained by that first naming. The parallel makes Jabez’s honor stand out: the pain attached to his name is present, but it is not the whole description of him.
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