What Does Nehemiah 7:13 Mean in the King James?

The children of Zattu, eight hundred forty and five.

Nehemiah 7:13 · KJV

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

A people is built from remembered households, not from an anonymous total.

THE MEANING

The verse holds a family name beside its number, making a larger people visible through particular lines. The count does not erase the household it names; belonging remains concrete even within a crowd.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that being counted makes a family anonymous: here, the name and number remain together.

THE ROOT

בְּנֵי

bənê

GROWS FROM

בנה

b-n-h

build, establish

⁨בְּנֵי⁩ (bənê, “children”) belongs to the word family associated with ⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah, “to build”). The word carries descendants as both the next generation and the living continuation of a household.

ALSO GROWS

ben: son, child

בֵּן

It names the counted group as descendants within a family line, not as anonymous entries.

banah: build

בָּנָה

The root family connects descendants with the way a household takes shape and continues.

THE PATTERN

A people becomes visible through the family lines named and carried forward.

And these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.

Genesis 46:8 · KJVThe family line begins as a named list, making a people visible through its descendants.

And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth-lehem:

Ruth 4:11 · KJVThe verse describes a people as a house built through family and generations.

Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;

Matthew 1:2 · KJVThe genealogy carries a people’s identity forward by naming each generation.

THE THREAD

And all the people that were in the gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Beth-lehem:

Ruth 4:11 · KJV

“Did build” is ⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah), from the root family associated with ⁨בֵּן⁩ (ben, “son/child”). Nehemiah’s counted descendants give that building a concrete shape: a household continues as part of a people.

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