What Does Nehemiah 12:25 Mean in the King James?
Mattaniah, and Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, Akkub, were porters keeping the ward at the thresholds of the gates.
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 calls these men “keepers of the watch” with two forms of one root, so their identity and duty are the same act of guarding.
THE MEANING
Protection takes shape at the thresholds of your life, where something passes from one space to another. The verse makes watchful service visible: care is carried by people entrusted with keeping watch together.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמְרֵי מִשְׁמָר
shomrei mishmar
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
to keep watch, guard, or preserve
“keeping the ward” in this verse is shomrei mishmar. The Hebrew pairs shomrei, “keepers,” with mishmar, “watch” or “guard duty,” forms grown from the same root. English separates the keepers from their task, while Hebrew shows them as the watch made visible, stationed where passage happens.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: keeper, one who watches
שֹׁמֵר
This branch names the people by the act of guarding they perform.
mishmar: watch, guard duty
מִשְׁמָר
This is the duty they keep; it shares its root with the word for the keepers themselves.
עֹבַדְיָה
ʿOvadyah
GROWS FROM
עבד
to serve or work
Obadiah’s name carries “servant of Yah,” and its עבד root also gives words for a servant and for service. In this list, keeping watch is a form of service: the name and the assigned work meet in one person.
ALSO GROWS
eved: servant
עֶבֶד
This branch makes the service carried in Obadiah’s name explicit.
avodah: service, work
עֲבֹדָה
This branch links the name’s root to the steady work of keeping watch.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted is protected through watchful keeping at the places where passage happens.
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.THE THREAD
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.The verse repeats שׁמר across “keepers” and “watch”; Psalm 121:4 uses that same root for the One who keeps Israel. The focus widens from watchmen at a gate to a keeping that does not sleep.
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