What Does Genesis 19:37 Mean in the King James?

And the firstborn bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

Genesis 19:37 · 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.

THE KEY

Moab is not merely a name here: “from a father” turns one birth’s circumstances into a lineage’s public identity.

THE MEANING

A name can carry an origin forward until a private act becomes part of a people’s public identity. Here Moab holds the sense “from a father,” and the line leaves the violence preceding the birth visible rather than smoothing it away. The verse speaks plainly about how one life’s beginning can become inherited history.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A name is only a label, detached from the story that produced it.

THE ROOT

מוֹאָב

Mo'av

GROWS FROM

אָב

Father; the name is heard through ⁨מֵאָב⁩ (me’av), “from a father.”

The verse’s name-play hears ⁨מוֹאָב⁩ (Mo’av, Moab) as ⁨מֵאָב⁩ (me’av, “from a father”). The name carries the circumstances of the birth into the ancestry named afterward.

ALSO GROWS

av: father

אָב

This is the noun at the heart of the name’s explanation: Moab is heard as “from a father.”

avot: fathers, ancestors

אָבוֹת

The verse moves from a father in the birth story to the collective ancestry of the Moabites.

THE PATTERN

A name compresses an origin or nature into a word that travels beyond the moment of naming.

And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.

Genesis 16:11 · KJVIshmael’s name carries the account of what is heard into the child’s identity.

And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

Exodus 2:10 · KJVMoses’ name holds the event of being drawn from water in the story of his life.

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

Matthew 1:21 · KJVJesus’ name carries the nature of his deliverance into the name by which he is called.

THE THREAD

And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Ben-ammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

Genesis 19:38 · KJV

The next verse carries the same naming pattern into Benammi and the ancestry of the Ammonites. Together, the two names make the birth story’s kinship part of the peoples’ identities.

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