What Does Ezra 2:42 Mean in the King James?

The children of the porters: the children of Shallum, the children of Ater, the children of Talmon, the children of Akkub, the children of Hatita, the children of Shobai, in all an hundred thirty and nine.

Ezra 2:42 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

What the KJV calls “porters” are gatekeepers: their families are named, and their shared work is counted at 139.

THE MEANING

The verse brings the keepers of entry into view: their families are named, and their number is counted. Tending a threshold belongs to the shared life of a community.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The work of guarding access is peripheral, unrecognized labor.

THE ROOT

הַשּׁוֹעֲרִים

ha-sho'arim

GROWS FROM

שׁער

Gate; an opening or entrance.

The Hebrew term names these porters as gatekeepers, tying their role to the gate itself. The verse makes their threshold-keeping visible by naming their families and counting them.

ALSO GROWS

sha'ar: Gate, entrance.

שַׁעַר

This is the opening whose threshold the gatekeepers tend.

sho'er: Gatekeeper, doorkeeper.

שׁוֹעֵר

This is the singular form of the role named in the verse, bringing out the work of keeping a gate.

THE PATTERN

Communities make their thresholds dependable by entrusting entry to recognized keepers.

Now it came to pass, when the wall was built, and I had set up the doors, and the porters and the singers and the Levites were appointed,

Nehemiah 7:1 · KJVPorters are appointed alongside the doors, making the tending of an entrance a recognized part of communal life.

All these which were chosen to be porters in the gates were two hundred and twelve. These were reckoned by their genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their set office.

1 Chronicles 9:22 · KJVGatekeepers are selected, counted, and traced by their families, as in this verse.

To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

John 10:3 · KJVThe porter opens the threshold, and that opening is part of how the sheep hear the shepherd and are led out.

THE THREAD

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

Psalm 100:4 · KJV

Ezra names the families who keep the gates; this psalm names entry through those gates. The shared Hebrew root ⁨שׁער⁩ (sha’ar, gate) links the keeper with the opening: access is something tended.

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