What Does 1 Chronicles 6:47 Mean in the King James?
The son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi.
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
The repeated “son” turns this list into a structure of belonging: each life is received from another and carried forward.
THE MEANING
Your identity is held in relationships that precede you: the verse moves from Mahli through Mushi and Merari to Levi. In its repeated “son,” life appears as received continuity, with each named person carrying the line onward. You stand within a world where belonging has roots older than your own naming.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that you are an isolated beginning, responsible for making belonging from nothing; this verse places each life within a chain of received relationship.
THE ROOT
בֵּן
ben
GROWS FROM
בנה
Build; form a household.
English “son” can sound like a label in a list, but ben is linked to banah, “build”: each son is part of a household being built through generations. The repeated word makes the genealogy an architecture of received life, with every name carrying the line forward.
ALSO GROWS
banah: build
בָּנָה
The shared root lets “son” carry the sense of a life participating in what is built across generations.
binyan: building, structure
בִּנְיָן
The genealogy itself reads as a structure formed through each successive relationship.
לֵוִי
Levi
GROWS FROM
לוה
Join, attach, accompany.
Levi’s name carries the sense of joining, which the verse’s chain enacts: each person is named in relation to the one before him. The line ends at Levi, while his name holds relation as its nature.
ALSO GROWS
lavah: be joined, accompany
לָוָה
The verb gives the name Levi its sense of attachment and makes the final name a clue to the line’s connective pattern.
Levi: joined, attached
לֵוִי
The ancestor’s name gathers the genealogy into a line of belonging.
THE PATTERN
A life is carried forward through named relationships, so what is received in one generation can continue into the next.
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto me, because I have born him three sons: therefore was his name called Levi.Levi’s name is linked to לָוָה (lavah), “be joined,” and this verse follows the line of descendants back to him. The naming verse makes the joining inside the genealogy visible: each generation is attached to the next.
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