What Does Genesis 46:22 Mean in the King James?
These are the sons of Rachel, which were born to Jacob: all the souls were fourteen.
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 verse counts fourteen living selves, gathering them into one family line.
THE MEANING
A family line is a gathering of living selves, each held within a shared descent. Each nefesh is a whole life within Rachel’s family count.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
n-p-sh
The living self: a person as a living soul and individual life.
“souls” in this verse is nephesh. Nefesh names the living soul, and the same Hebrew word can also name a person’s life, self, or appetite. The fourteen are a family count made of particular living people.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh chayyah: living being
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase names a living being, showing the life contained in each count.
nafshi: my life, my self
נַפְשִׁי
This possessive form makes the personal self within the family number visible.
nephesh: appetite, desire
נֶפֶשׁ
The same word can name a person’s desire, pointing to the particular life gathered into the count.
יֻלַּד
yullad
GROWS FROM
י־ל־ד
y-l-d
To bear, give birth, or bring forth.
The verb for being born, the word for a child, and the word for generations share the seed ילד. The passage gathers the lives brought forth along Rachel’s family line into the number fourteen.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: bear, give birth
יָלַד
This is the root action behind the verse’s description of the family as born to Jacob.
yeled: child
יֶלֶד
The child is the life brought forth by the root action of birth.
toledot: generations, family line
תּוֹלְדוֹת
The generations carry the same root forward, connecting each birth to the family line.
THE PATTERN
Scripture counts people as living souls held within a larger family or community.
All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six;Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.THE THREAD
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.Genesis 2:7 uses the same Hebrew word, נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul), for the living being humanity becomes. Here that same life-word makes Rachel’s family count a count of living selves.
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