What Does Matthew 1:11 Mean?
And Josiah brought forth Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the carrying away to Babylon.
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
And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:THE KEY
Matthew names forced relocation through a word built on the Greek language of dwelling, then places kinship inside the same line: the home changes, but the family is still named.
THE MEANING
The verse holds displacement and continuity together: a family is moved from its dwelling, yet its names and generations continue to be spoken. When a familiar home is lost in your life, the loss can be real without making your relationships or story disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being uprooted means the family line or story is finished: the verse names the forced removal inside the same sentence that names the next generation.
THE ROOT
μετοικεσίας
metoikesias
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
oik-, house or dwelling; the stem at the heart of words for home and inhabiting.
“the carrying away to Babylon” in this verse is metoikesias. The Greek noun μετοικεσία means deportation or relocation and belongs to the οἰκ- dwelling family. The wording holds the idea of home inside the forced movement: the family is transferred from one dwelling place to another, while the genealogy keeps naming its members.
ALSO GROWS
oikos: house, household
οἶκος
The same οἰκ- stem names the household from which someone can be relocated.
oikia: house, home
οἰκία
This branch makes the dwelling itself visible inside the word for deportation.
oikeō: dwell, inhabit
οἰκέω
It names living in a place, giving the relocation the shape of a change in where one dwells.
ἀδελφούς
adelphous
GROWS FROM
δελφ-
delph-, womb; the Greek sibling word is traditionally understood through the image of those from the same womb.
“brethren” in this verse is adelphous. The Greek word for the brothers contains δελφ-, the word for womb. English keeps their kinship but hides this embodied root: the verse names a shared origin at the very moment it records their displacement.
ALSO GROWS
delphys: womb
δελφύς
This is the root word that makes the shared-womb sense of ἀδελφός visible.
adelphotēs: brotherhood, siblinghood
ἀδελφότης
The same stem carries kinship from individual siblings into a shared bond.
ἐγέννησεν
egennēsen
GROWS FROM
γεν-
gen-, birth or coming into being; the Greek family of words for generation and descent.
“brought forth” in this verse is egennēsen. The verb for begetting belongs to the same γεν- family as words for birth and lineage. The sentence sets that generative continuity beside deportation: a family’s place changes while its descent remains part of the record.
ALSO GROWS
genos: family, lineage, kind
γένος
This branch names the line that the verb ἐγέννησεν continues.
genesis: birth, origin
γένεσις
It shares the birth-root and brings the idea of a beginning into the genealogy.
gennaō: beget, give birth
γεννάω
This is the verb family behind ἐγέννησεν, joining the verse’s act of begetting to the larger language of birth.
THE PATTERN
A change of place can carry a family or community forward without ending its continuity.
And he said, I am God, the God of your father. Do not fear to go down into Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation.Build houses and settle in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit.So those who were scattered passed through every place, bringing the good news of the word.THE THREAD
After the carrying from their dwelling to Babylon, Jeconiah brought forth Shealtiel, and Shealtiel brought forth Zerubbabel.Matthew 1:12 repeats the same Greek noun, μετοικεσία, for the deportation and immediately names another begetting. The word marks a hinge in the family record: relocation is inside the line’s story, while the lineage continues through it.
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