What Does 1 Chronicles 6:16 Mean in the King James?

The sons of Levi; Gershom, Kohath, and Merari.

1 Chronicles 6:16 · KJV

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

Even in a bare genealogy, Merari keeps bitterness inside the family line: continuity does not erase the sharp meanings a name carries.

THE MEANING

Your life belongs to a line of connection, and its names can carry pain alongside continuity. This list lets bitterness remain named within a line that continues.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The idea that a continuing family line must be free of bitterness is undone here: Merari’s name carries that meaning in the genealogy.

THE ROOT

מְרָרִי

Merārī

GROWS FROM

מרר

To be bitter or to make bitter.

Merari’s name carries the root of bitterness. English leaves the name opaque, but Hebrew lets bitterness remain within the genealogy as a meaning carried forward alongside the line.

ALSO GROWS

mārar: To be bitter; to make bitter.

מָרַר

The verb makes the root active: bitterness can be something experienced or inflicted, as in the verse about lives made bitter in Exodus 1:14.

merōrīm: Bitter herbs.

מְרֹרִים

Here the same root gives bitterness a taste, making it concrete rather than abstract.

merīrūt: Bitterness.

מְרִירוּת

This noun names the quality carried in Merari’s name, showing how the root’s meaning can persist as a condition.

THE PATTERN

Genealogies preserve identity by naming the line through which life continues.

And the sons of Levi; Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

Genesis 46:11 · KJVThe same three names mark Levi’s line as it continues through his sons.

And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari: and the years of the life of Levi were an hundred thirty and seven years.

Exodus 6:16 · KJVThe verse names the same sons and explicitly places them within generations.

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:1 · KJVThis opening traces identity through a named line extending across generations.

THE THREAD

And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

Exodus 1:14 · KJV

The root in Merari’s name also describes lives made bitter here. The shared root lets the name carry an echo of bitterness as a lived condition, not just an opaque label.

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