What Does Genesis 35:25 Mean in the King James?
And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid; Dan, and Naphtali:
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
This bare genealogy preserves two inner movements in the names themselves: Dan carries judgment, and Naphtali carries wrestling.
THE MEANING
You encounter Dan and Naphtali as names that hold judgment and wrestling within them. The verse locates them as sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid, while their names carry more than labels: each compresses a movement into a name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a name is only an empty label dissolves here: Dan and Naphtali carry the movements of judgment and wrestling within them.
THE ROOT
דָּן
dān
GROWS FROM
דין
To judge; judgment or the deciding of a case.
The naming wordplay in Genesis 30:6 links Dan with the act of being judged. The name keeps that movement inside this list, where English gives only a proper name.
ALSO GROWS
dānannî: He has judged me.
דָּנַנִּי
This is the verb in Rachel’s naming statement for Dan, making the name a compressed form of judgment experienced.
dîn: Judgment; a judgment or legal case.
דִּין
This noun shows the same root reaching from the act of judging to the judgment itself.
נַפְתָּלִי
Naphtālî
GROWS FROM
פתל
To twist or entwine; in the naming wordplay, to wrestle or struggle.
The naming wordplay in Genesis 30:8 links Naphtali with wrestling through this root. The root can also describe what is twisted, so the name holds struggle as an entangled movement rather than a bare label.
ALSO GROWS
niftaltî: I have wrestled or struggled.
נִפְתַּלְתִּי
Rachel uses this form in the naming wordplay for Naphtali, placing the struggle directly inside the name.
petaltol: Twisted or crooked.
פְּתַלְתֹּל
This branch shows the root’s image of twisting beneath the struggle carried by Naphtali’s name.
THE PATTERN
A name can hold the movement or nature it brings into the story.
And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.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.And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.THE THREAD
And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed: and she called his name Naphtali.Rachel’s “I have wrestled” is נִפְתַּלְתִּי (niftaltî, “I have wrestled”), from פָּתַל (pāthal, “to twist or entwine; to wrestle in this wordplay”). Genesis 35:25 compresses that struggle into Naphtali’s name.
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