What Does 1 Chronicles 6:79 Mean in the King James?
Kedemoth also with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs:
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 verse counts the open land around a place as part of the place itself: each town is named together with its surrounding ground.
THE MEANING
This verse holds each place together with its surrounding ground: Kedemoth and Mephaath are each named with their open lands. The surrounding space belongs in the same count as the town, not as an afterthought. Kedemoth carries the Hebrew root’s sense of what is before, eastward, or ancient.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
גרש
g-r-sh
To drive out or cast away; מִגְרָשׁ (migrash) means the open land around a town, though its derivation from this root is uncertain.
The Hebrew name for these surrounding lands may echo the idea of space set outward from the built place. That possible link lets “suburbs” suggest more than proximity: it names the open margin as part of the town’s allotted space.
ALSO GROWS
garash: To drive out or expel
גָּרַשׁ
This is the proposed root connection behind the idea of land set beyond the town’s built center; the derivation is not certain.
migrash: Open land around a town
מִגְרָשׁ
This is the singular form of the word translated “suburbs,” naming the surrounding ground itself.
קְדֵמוֹת
qedemoth
GROWS FROM
קדם
q-d-m
To be before or in front; the root also carries the senses of eastward and ancient.
Kedemoth is more than a bare label: its name carries the root’s overlapping sense of what lies ahead, what is eastward, and what is ancient. English keeps only the place-name, while the Hebrew preserves that spatial and temporal resonance.
ALSO GROWS
qedem: East, the front, or ancient time
קֶדֶם
This shared root gives Kedemoth its sense of direction and what came before.
qadam: To precede or come before
קָדַם
This verb shows the root’s basic movement toward what is in front.
THE PATTERN
A town and its surrounding open land are counted as one unit of settled life.
Command the children of Israel, that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in; and ye shall give also unto the Levites suburbs for the cities round about them.Kedemoth with her suburbs, and Mephaath with her suburbs; four cities.THE THREAD
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.Kedemoth shares the consonantal root קדם (q-d-m), meaning what is before or eastward, with קֶדֶם (qedem), the word rendered “eastward” here. In Genesis, that root carries a garden-facing sense of what lies before; the town-name preserves the same spatial and temporal resonance.
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