What Does Luke 3:31 Mean?
Who was the son of Melea, who was the son of Menan, who was the son of Mattatha, who was the son of Nathan, who was the son of David.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Which was the son of Melea, which was the son of Menan, which was the son of Mattatha, which was the son of Nathan, which was the son of David,THE KEY
David’s name carries “beloved,” and this verse places the beloved within a chain of sons.
THE MEANING
David appears here as both a name with meaning and a person in relation to those before him. Read now, the line makes belonging visible as something carried through relationships across generations. A person can be remembered by name while remaining part of a larger story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a person’s significance begins with standing alone: this line places David within relationships that extend beyond him.
THE ROOT
Δαυὶδ
Dauid
GROWS FROM
Δαυίδ
This is David’s name as it appears in Greek; its Hebrew source, דָּוִד (Dāwīd), is commonly linked with דּוֹד (dōd), meaning “beloved.”
The Greek name carries a Hebrew name-nature: “David” holds the sense of beloved. Here, the beloved is also a son within a line, so the name and the relationship belong together.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved; also uncle in some contexts.
דּוֹד
This Hebrew word shares the consonants associated with David’s name and makes the name’s sense of beloved visible.
Dāwīd: David, the name commonly connected with “beloved.”
דָּוִד
The name itself carries that meaning into the genealogy, where David is placed in relation to the names around him.
THE PATTERN
Scripture carries identity and belonging through relationships that extend across generations.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.And if you are of the Anointed One, then you are the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.THE THREAD
Who was the son of Enos, who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.The same chain of “son of” relationships that places David among his ancestors continues through Adam to God. The repeated form widens the genealogy from one family line to a statement about human origin.
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