What Does Genesis 10:4 Mean in the King James?
And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.
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 names distinct peoples as family branches, letting difference emerge without erasing shared descent.
THE MEANING
These names give human difference a family shape: several branches come from one line. That shared ancestry remains part of the human map you inhabit now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that distinct peoples must be unrelated: it names them within one family line.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
Build, establish; the noun בֵּן (ben, “son”) is traditionally linked to this root as one who continues the family line.
The Hebrew word for “sons” carries a traditional connection to building: each generation continues the family line. Here, that family language makes the named peoples branches of one lineage, not isolated labels.
ALSO GROWS
banah: Build, establish
בָּנָה
The root link gives “sons” the sense of a line that continues and takes shape across generations.
binyan: Building, structure
בִּנְיָן
A family line can be seen as a structure formed through successive generations; the verse names branches within that structure.
THE PATTERN
Genealogies show human difference branching outward through kinship while retaining a shared origin.
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.The shared word “sons” joins this short branch list to a wider map of families and nations. Distinct peoples appear as branches within kinship, so their differences do not erase their shared line.
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