What Does Nehemiah 7:61 Mean in the King James?
And these were they which went up also from Tel-melah, Tel-haresha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer: but they could not shew their father’s house, nor their seed, whether they were of Israel.
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 missing thing is proof of lineage, not proof that these people have no lineage.
THE MEANING
You meet an honest boundary of proof: a family line may matter deeply and still be impossible to demonstrate. Here, neither the ancestral house nor the descendants establish whether these people are of Israel. The verse leaves that identity question open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that every family line can be confidently documented: here, the uncertainty is real, and the text does not invent a verdict.
THE ROOT
זַרְעָם
zarʿām
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; seed and what grows from it.
Here, “seed” names descendants, the generational line whose ancestry is being tested. The root holds both sowing and offspring, so the question reaches beyond a household name to whether its line can be established.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow
זָרַע
The verb makes seed part of an ongoing generational line, the very continuity at issue here.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The same noun names both literal seed and descendants, giving “their seed” its sense of a lineage.
לְהַגִּיד
lehaggid
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
To be in front of; to make known or declare.
“shew” in this verse is lehaggid. The verb means to declare or make known: these people are not said to have no ancestors, but they cannot present their ancestral house and descendants as a demonstrable line. That distinction lets the verse preserve uncertainty instead of turning missing evidence into a conclusion about who they are.
ALSO GROWS
neged: In front of; opposite
נֶגֶד
Its sense of what stands before someone echoes the act of placing a family line in view.
nāgīd: Leader; prince
נָגִיד
A related word for a leader or prince carries the sense of one set before others, echoing the public presentation implied by “shew.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture traces descent through family lines and names when a record cannot establish that line.
These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood.The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.So all Israel were reckoned by genealogies; and, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, who were carried away to Babylon for their transgression.THE THREAD
And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.“Seed” translates the same Hebrew root, זרע (z-r-ʿ), meaning seed or offspring. Here the word concerns a line that cannot be established; in Genesis, it carries a promise forward through generations.
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