What Does Genesis 10:6 Mean in the King James?
And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.
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 list hides a landscape in a family line: heat, constriction, and subduing are already present in the names.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you through names that carry more than identification: they compress the shape of a life or a place into a sound. Ham carries heat, Mizraim echoes constriction, and Canaan carries the sense of being brought low; the list lets you see the nature gathering inside a family line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a name is only a label; here, the names already disclose something of the nature they carry.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ts-r-r
To constrict, bind, or press into narrowness.
Mizraim carries the sound-shape of tzar, “narrow,” with a dual ending, an image of the two narrows. The name lets constriction appear as a place and a condition within this family line.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricted.
צַר
It gives the name its image of narrowness: what presses life into a confined space.
metsar: A narrow place, a strait, or distress.
מֵצַר
This branch shows how physical narrowness can also name the experience of being pressed.
כְּנַעַן
Kena'an
GROWS FROM
כ־נ־ע
k-n-ʿ
To bend low, humble, or bring into subjection.
Canaan echoes the root for being brought low or subdued. The name adds subjection to the verse’s field of meaning: alongside constriction, the list names a condition of lowered power.
ALSO GROWS
kana: To be humbled or submit.
כָּנַע
It gives the name an inward sense of being brought low.
hikhni'a: To humble or bring into subjection.
הִכְנִיעַ
This branch makes the force of the root active: a person or people can be pressed into a lower place.
חָם
Cham
GROWS FROM
ח־מ־ם
ḥ-m-m
To be hot or become heated.
Ham carries heat in his name, giving the list another force alongside constriction and subjection. The verse is not only recording descent; its names hold qualities that can unfold into conditions.
ALSO GROWS
chom: Heat or warmth.
חֹם
It makes the nature carried by Ham’s name explicit.
chammah: The sun, or heat.
חַמָּה
It shows the root’s heat extending from bodily warmth to a force in the world.
THE PATTERN
A name in scripture carries a nature that can unfold into a person’s path or a people’s condition.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.THE THREAD
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.The name that enters this verse as Mizraim reappears here in “the Egyptians,” carrying the same image of constriction. At the edge of that narrow place, deliverance opens the way beyond it.
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