What Does Exodus 2:1 Mean in the King James?
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter 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
Levi stands at both ends of the marriage: the man comes from Levi’s house and the woman is Levi’s daughter, so the new household begins inside the lineage it carries forward.
THE MEANING
A life takes shape within a lineage: the man comes from Levi’s house and takes a daughter of Levi, so the household he begins grows from the family line that formed him. The repeated name holds origin and continuation together, showing a family carrying itself forward through joined lives.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקַּח
wayyiqqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
To take, receive, or acquire.
“took” in this verse is wayyiqqaḥ. Here, marriage is voiced through the verb לָקַח, “take” or “receive.” The same root names לֶקַח, instruction taken in, and מֶלְקָחַיִם, tongs that grasp; across these forms, לקח carries the movement from taking hold to receiving.
ALSO GROWS
leqaḥ: Instruction or teaching.
לֶקַח
Instruction is something received or taken in, extending the root’s sense beyond physical grasping.
melqaḥayim: Tongs.
מֶלְקָחַיִם
The tool grasps and takes hold, giving a physical image of the root’s action.
בֵּית
bêt
GROWS FROM
בית
House, household, or family line.
בַּיִת can name a dwelling and the household or lineage gathered under it. “From the house of Levi” therefore places the man within a continuing family structure, and the repeated name places the woman within that same named lineage.
ALSO GROWS
bêt-ʾāv: Father’s house or paternal household.
בֵּית־אָב
The same word for house can name a wider kinship group, clarifying the family sense of “house of Levi.”
bêt-YHWH: House of the LORD, or the LORD’s temple.
בֵּית־יְהוָה
The same word names a dwelling associated with a larger community, linking a physical house with the people gathered around it.
THE PATTERN
A family line is carried forward through unions that form households and births that extend them.
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.THE THREAD
And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root לקח when Isaac takes Rebekah and then names her his wife. That shared verb opens Exodus’s phrasing further: the household begins through receiving someone into the family line.
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