What Does Matthew 1:6 Mean in the King James?
And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
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 royal title is repeated, but the lineage does not let David’s kingship detach Solomon from Uriah’s wife.
THE MEANING
Your story can hold a public identity and an entangled origin at once. David’s kingship is named twice, while Solomon’s begetting remains attached to the woman identified through Uriah. The lineage preserves both authority and uncomfortable relational detail in one sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A celebrated title cannot make a complicated beginning disappear; the verse keeps Uriah in the lineage’s telling even while naming David king.
THE ROOT
ἐγέννησεν
egennēsen
GROWS FROM
γενν-
To beget, give birth to, bring forth.
English can make “begat” sound like a bare genealogical formula, but the repeated Greek verb carries the sense of bringing forth. Its word family includes terms for lineage and origin, so the verse holds a life emerging within family history, not just a clean abstract chain.
ALSO GROWS
genos: Family, kind, lineage.
γένος
This related word makes the genealogy legible as a continuing family line.
genesis: Origin, birth, coming-to-be.
γένεσις
The same word family brings the idea of a beginning into this record of descent.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
ד־ו־ד
Beloved; also a term for close male kin, such as an uncle.
David’s name carries belovedness alongside his royal identity. The verse repeats “king,” yet the name itself keeps relation and intimacy in view beside the lineage’s relational detail.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved one; also uncle or close male kin.
דּוֹד
The name’s kinship sense brings relationship into a verse that could otherwise read as a sequence of royal titles.
dōdî: My beloved.
דּוֹדִי
This form keeps the root’s language of belovedness present within the name David.
שְׁלֹמֹה
Shelomoh
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ם
Wholeness, completeness, well-being.
Solomon’s name echoes the Hebrew family of wholeness and well-being, placing that meaning beside the verse’s unresolved relational history. The name does not erase that history; both remain in the same line.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch lets the meaning carried in Solomon’s name remain audible in the genealogy.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch gives the name’s root a concrete sense of completeness beside a lineage that preserves its complexity.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s lines of descent carry both what continues and the human history attached to how it came forth.
And Judah acknowledged them, and said, She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son. And he knew her again no more.And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;THE THREAD
And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;Matthew uses the same Greek verb γεννάω (gennaō, “to beget”) here and in 1:6, binding both entries into one genealogy. Both lines preserve a maternal relationship within the record: Tamar is named, while Solomon’s mother is identified through Uriah.
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