What Does 1 Chronicles 7:15 Mean in the King James?
And Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister’s name was Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters.
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 Hebrew says Zelophehad’s daughters “were to him,” recording their place in the family line through their very existence.
THE MEANING
This line gives Zelophehad’s daughters a place in the family record, even though it leaves them unnamed here. The Hebrew uses the verb for being where English says he “had” daughters. Their relationship is already legible before the verse supplies their names or the inheritance claim attached to them.
THE ROOT
וַתִּהְיֶינָה
vattihyena
GROWS FROM
היה
be, become, come to be
“had” in this verse is vattihyena. The Hebrew clause is וַתִּהְיֶינָה לִצְלָפְחָד בָּנוֹת (vattihyena litzelophchad banot), literally, “and daughters were to Zelophehad.” The verb comes from היה (hayah), “be, become,” so what English renders as having is framed through the daughters’ being in relation to him. The verse records their place in the family before it gives their names or describes their inheritance claim.
ALSO GROWS
hayah: be, become
הָיָה
This is the root verb behind the verse’s wording: the daughters are said to be to Zelophehad.
hayu: they were
הָיוּ
This plural form of the same root makes the clause’s emphasis clear: the daughters are present in the family line.
yihyeh: he or it will be
יִהְיֶה
This form shows the root’s core sense of being or coming to be across time.
THE PATTERN
A family’s place in the biblical record is carried through women as well as men.
The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.And he shall be unto thee a restorer of thy life, and a nourisher of thine old age: for thy daughter in law, which loveth thee, which is better to thee than seven sons, hath born him.And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;THE THREAD
The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.Both verses use בָּנוֹת (banot), “daughters,” for Zelophehad’s children. Here their presence is recorded; in Numbers, that same family relation becomes the basis for inheritance passing to them.
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