What Does Genesis 36:32 Mean in the King James?
And Bela the son of Beor reigned in Edom: and the name of his city was Dinhabah.
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 first king’s name is Bela, “swallowing”, so the verse makes consumption the sound at the center of rule.
THE MEANING
This verse puts a name before a deed: Bela carries the image of swallowing, and Edom carries the color red. It names a city without opening its meaning, leaving Dinhabah part of the passage’s mystery. Power, territory, and name arrive together in the reader’s field of view.
THE ROOT
בֶּלַע
Belaʿ
GROWS FROM
בלע
To swallow, engulf, or consume.
Bela’s name carries the root בלע, making “swallowing” audible inside the name of a king. The name opens a branch of meaning the English proper name can conceal: rule can take on the image of engulfing.
ALSO GROWS
balaʿ: To swallow or engulf.
בָּלַע
This verb gives Bela’s name its consuming image.
billaʿ: He swallowed or consumed.
בִּלַּע
The same root turns the name’s image into an action: something is taken in and disappears from view.
אֱדוֹם
Edom
GROWS FROM
אדם
The consonant root associated with redness and the ground-colored name family.
Edom carries the color red in its name, echoing the naming language that joins Adam and adamah, the ground. The territory is not merely a place-name here; its name keeps color and ground within the verse’s field of meaning.
ALSO GROWS
adom: Red or ruddy.
אָדֹם
This is the color carried in the name Edom.
adamah: Ground or soil.
אֲדָמָה
The shared consonants bring the ground into the same name-family, deepening the sense of Edom as more than a label.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets a name carry the nature or defining act it reveals.
And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.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
But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD.Bela (בֶּלַע, Belaʿ, “swallowing”) is linked to the root בלע (balaʿ, “swallow”). Numbers 16:30 uses that same root for the earth swallowing, making the consuming force inside Bela’s name visible as an action.
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