What Does Nehemiah 7:21 Mean in the King James?
The children of Ater of Hezekiah, ninety and eight.
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 98 descendants while preserving their family name, and its word for “children” carries an echo of building.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a people as both a name and a number: Ater’s descendants are counted without losing their lineage. “Children” echoes the Hebrew root for building, making belonging a continuity carried forward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A count does not have to make people anonymous; this entry keeps the family name beside the number.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
Build, establish.
The word for children is linked to the root for building. The count therefore holds more than a headcount: it marks a family line being carried forward.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son, child.
בֵּן
This family word shares the building-root, giving lineage an echo of what is built onward.
binyan: Building, structure.
בִּנְיָן
This is another form from the same root, connecting the verse’s children with the idea of a structure taking shape.
חִזְקִיָּהוּ
Chizqiyyahu
GROWS FROM
חזק
chazaq
Be strong, strengthen, make firm.
“Hezekiah” in this verse is Chizqiyyahu. The name carries the sense “Yah strengthens.” Alongside the family’s count, it preserves a name-nature of strength within the lineage.
ALSO GROWS
chazaq: Be strong, prevail, hold firm.
חָזַק
The verb shows the strength at the root of Hezekiah’s name.
chizzeq: Strengthen, make firm.
חִזֵּק
This form makes explicit the strengthening carried in the name.
THE PATTERN
Scripture’s counts can preserve people as known and particular rather than leave them an anonymous crowd.
And my God put into mine heart to gather together the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of them which came up at the first, and found written therein,The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah.But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.THE THREAD
The children of Ater of Hezekiah, ninety and eight.Ezra 2:16 preserves this same family name and total word for word. The repeated line shows the count as part of a record that keeps this particular lineage visible.
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