What Does Genesis 46:21 Mean in the King James?
And the sons of Benjamin were Belah, and Becher, and Ashbel, Gera, and Naaman, Ehi, and Rosh, Muppim, and Huppim, and Ard.
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 Hebrew word בֵּן (ben, “son”) is linked with בָּנָה (banah, “build”), so this list reads as a household taking shape through named lives.
THE MEANING
This verse holds belonging as both shared and particular: one household is carried through a series of distinct names. The names are not a faceless total; each person has a place in the line, and the line itself is something being built.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A family line is only a number, so the people inside it are interchangeable.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
to build or establish
“sons” in this verse is benei. The Hebrew word for “son” is traditionally linked with בָּנָה (banah, “build”). Genesis makes the connection audible when Sarah says, “I may obtain children by her” (Genesis 16:2); the Hebrew verb there means “be built.”
ALSO GROWS
ben: son; a member of a family line
בֵּן
The word for a son carries a sound and sense associated with building a household.
banah: to build or establish
בָּנָה
This verb makes the household-building association visible in Genesis 16:2.
binyan: a building or structure
בִּנְיָן
The related word for a structure echoes the way each named son belongs within a larger household.
נַעֲמָן
Naʿaman
GROWS FROM
נעם
n-ʿ-m
to be pleasant or delightful
Naaman carries the sense of pleasantness within a list that otherwise gives no description of its people. The name preserves a quality inside the family line, and the same root appears in the psalm’s words about what is pleasant among brothers.
ALSO GROWS
noʿam: pleasantness or delight
נֹעַם
It shares the root that gives Naaman its sense of pleasantness.
naʿim: pleasant or delightful
נָעִים
This is the form translated “pleasant” in Psalm 133:1, linking Naaman’s name to the psalm’s picture of brothers together.
THE PATTERN
A household’s continuity is carried forward in distinct names, not only in its headcount.
Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees of David. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!Naaman (נַעֲמָן, Naʿaman, “pleasant one”) carries the root נעם (n-ʿ-m, “to be pleasant”), which appears in the psalm’s “pleasant.” Ehi (אֲחִי, ʾAḥi, “my brother”) stands among these names, placing pleasantness beside brotherhood, the pairing the psalm voices plainly.
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