What Does Numbers 26:23 Mean in the King James?

Of the sons of Issachar after their families: of Tola, the family of the Tolaites: of Pua, the family of the Punites:

Numbers 26:23 · 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

Issachar’s name does not stop at one ancestor; it is carried forward into distinct, named family lines.

THE MEANING

The verse keeps Issachar’s descendants in view through their households, preserving Tola and Pua as names within the lineage. It presents continuity as something specific: a shared origin carried through distinct family names.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that those who come after a person become an anonymous mass: the verse preserves the names of the families within the line.

THE ROOT

יִשָּׂשכָר

Yissachar

GROWS FROM

שכר

Hire, wages, or recompense.

Genesis 30:18 ties Issachar’s name to ⁨שָׂכָר⁩ (sakar), meaning hire or recompense. Here that name continues from one ancestor into named family lines, keeping the origin and its households in view together.

ALSO GROWS

sakar: Wages, hire, or reward.

שָׂכָר

Genesis connects this word to Issachar’s name, so the census carries that meaning into the family line.

sakhar: To hire or receive as hire.

שָׂכַר

This verbal branch shows the same root in action: the name holds the language of hiring and recompense.

THE PATTERN

A lineage remains legible when names are carried into households and descendants.

And the sons of Issachar; Tola, and Phuvah, and Job, and Shimron.

Genesis 46:13 · KJVThe verse names Issachar’s sons, whose family lines this census continues to identify.

Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.

Exodus 1:1 · KJVThe verse preserves names alongside households, as this census does for Issachar’s families.

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

Matthew 1:2 · KJVThe genealogy carries names from one generation into the next, keeping the line visible.

THE THREAD

And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar.

Genesis 30:18 · KJV

The name in this census carries the language of ⁨שָׂכָר⁩ (sakar, hire or recompense): Genesis ties Issachar to Leah’s “hire.” Numbers then shows that name continuing as an ancestry with families of its own.

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