What Does Nehemiah 5:17 Mean in the King James?
Moreover there were at my table an hundred and fifty of the Jews and rulers, beside those that came unto us from among the heathen that are about us.
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 for “table” carries the root of “send forth” and “release,” making this table a picture of provision moving outward.
THE MEANING
The table before you can hold a community larger than your familiar circle. The verse places Jews, rulers, and people arriving from surrounding nations at one table. Belonging becomes visible as a seat and a meal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that provision must stop at the edge of your familiar circle breaks here: people from beyond it share the table.
THE ROOT
שֻׁלְחָנִי
shulchani
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send forth, release, let go.
Although English “table” sounds like a fixed object, the word carries the consonants שלח (shalach, “send forth, release”). That family makes the table an image of provision sent outward: those from beyond the familiar circle are not merely counted but seated and fed.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: Send, send forth, release, or let go.
שָׁלַח
This verb makes the table’s provision an outward movement rather than something held close.
shilluach: Sending away or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch shows the root’s sense of letting something or someone go forth.
shaluach: One who is sent.
שָׁלוּחַ
The sent person carries the same outward motion that the table gives to provision.
סְבִיבוֹתֵינוּ
sevivoteinu
GROWS FROM
סבב
Go around, turn, surround.
סְבִיבוֹתֵינוּ (sevivoteinu, “around us”) belongs to the סבב (savav, “go around, surround”) family. The verse moves the surrounding nations from the edge of the sentence to the table’s center, turning geography into shared presence.
ALSO GROWS
savav: Go around or surround.
סָבַב
This verb gives the surrounding nations a place in the verse’s image of a circle around the speaker.
saviv: Around or surrounding.
סָבִיב
This related form echoes the verse’s description of people beyond the familiar center.
THE PATTERN
A shared table turns provision into belonging by gathering people beyond the familiar circle.
And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:THE THREAD
Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.The Hebrew שֻׁלְחָנִי (shulchani, “my table”) carries the consonants of שלח (shalach, “send forth, release”), the verb rendered “let my people go” here. The verses show the same outward movement in two forms: provision sent forth at a table and people released.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us