What Does Nehemiah 7:31 Mean in the King James?
The men of Michmas, an hundred and twenty and two.
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 place associated with hiddenness comes into view through a count precise enough to name its people.
THE MEANING
Restoration makes belonging concrete: this community has a named home and an exact count. Its 122 people remain visible as a group rather than dissolving into an unnamed mass.
THE ROOT
מִכְמָס
Mikmas
GROWS FROM
כמס
k-m-s
To store away or conceal; a rare, sparsely attested root.
“Michmas” in this verse is Mikmas. The place-name is traditionally linked with a rare verb for hiding or storing something away. Here, that hidden-sounding place becomes visible as a community with an exact number.
ALSO GROWS
kāmas: To store away, conceal.
כָּמַס
This rare verb supplies the traditional root connection behind the place-name.
Mikmas: Michmas; a place-name traditionally associated with a hidden store or place.
מִכְמָס
The verse names this home community and preserves its count, bringing the place into view.
אַנְשֵׁי
anshē
GROWS FROM
אנש
ʾ-n-š
To be frail or weak; in this word family, mortal humanity.
The form for “men” carries the same consonants as a word for mortal humans and a verb of frailty. That consonant family lets the count register vulnerable human lives, not just a figure.
ALSO GROWS
ʾĕnōsh: Mortal human, humankind.
אֱנוֹשׁ
Its consonants connect the verse’s people with humanity in its finite, vulnerable condition.
ʾānaš: To be weak, sick, or incurably ill.
אָנַשׁ
This verb shares the consonants and gives the human word-family its note of frailty.
THE PATTERN
Restoration makes belonging concrete by locating people and keeping their place visible in a count or name.
The men of Michmas, an hundred twenty and two.The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah.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
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?The Hebrew word for “men” here shares the consonantal family of Job’s “mortal man.” That connection lets the registry’s number open onto the finite human lives it counts.
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