What Does Nehemiah 7:29 Mean in the King James?
The men of Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred forty and three.
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 tally carries a landscape inside it: its people come from a city of forests and a place of wells.
THE MEANING
Belonging here has place and number: the people are counted through the communities that hold them. The names carry forest and wells into that count, making restoration tangible in land and sources.
THE ROOT
בְּאֵרוֹת
be'erot
GROWS FROM
באר
Well; a dug source of water.
English leaves Beeroth looking like a label, but Hebrew be’erot (בְּאֵרוֹת, wells) names the place as plural sources of water. The count keeps a place of provision inside the list: these are people connected to wells and the land around them.
ALSO GROWS
be'er: A well, a dug source of water.
בְּאֵר
This singular form is the word beneath the place name Beeroth.
Be'er Sheva: A place name built from the word for well.
בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע
The same word marks another place, showing how a well can become part of a landscape’s name.
Be'er-lahai-roi: A place name meaning Well of the Living One who sees me.
בְּאֵר לַחַי רֹאִי
Here too, the word for well makes a source of water part of a place’s identity.
יְעָרִים
ye'arim
GROWS FROM
יער
Forest, woodland.
Kirjath-jearim means “city of forests”; ya’ar (יַעַר, forest) places woodland inside the name. A related word-shape appears in ya’arat ha-devash (יַעֲרַת הַדְּבַשׁ, honeycomb), an echo that can call up gathered sweetness alongside the literal forest name.
ALSO GROWS
ya'ar: Forest or woodland.
יַעַר
This singular form is the landscape named in Kirjath-jearim.
ya'arat ha-devash: Honeycomb.
יַעֲרַת הַדְּבַשׁ
The related word-shape appears in the phrase for honeycomb, letting the forest name carry an echo of gathered sweetness.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible through named communities whose people are counted and gathered.
The children of Kirjath-arim, Chephirah, and Beeroth, seven hundred and forty and three.Now these are the chief of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem: but in the cities of Judah dwelt every one in his possession in their cities, to wit, Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the Nethinims, and the children of Solomon’s servants.Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.THE THREAD
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.Beeroth is the plural of be’er (בְּאֵר, well), the same word used here for wells that Isaac digs again. That shared word lets the place name hold an image of sources reopened and named again.
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