What Does Nehemiah 10:11 Mean?
Mica, Rehob, Hashabiah,
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
Micha, Rehob, Hashabiah,THE KEY
This covenant is attached to named people, including Hashabiah, whose name carries the root for thinking and reckoning.
THE MEANING
The covenant becomes visible through particular people, not as an idea detached from life. Hashabiah’s name means “Yah has considered,” and Rehob means “broad place,” bringing thought and breadth into this brief list of participants.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Commitment is faceless and exists only as an abstract promise; this roster keeps it attached to named people.
THE ROOT
חֲשַׁבְיָה
Ḥăšaḇyāh
GROWS FROM
חשב
To think, devise, reckon, or account.
Hashabiah joins this root for thought and reckoning to Yah, giving the name the sense “Yah has considered.” The name carries the language of being thought of within a list of covenant participants.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāšav: To think, devise, or reckon.
חָשַׁב
This is the verb carried in Hashabiah’s name.
maḥăšāḇāh: Thought, plan, or design.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The noun shares the same root and appears in Jeremiah’s phrase “the thoughts that I think.”
רְחוֹב
Reḥov
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be broad or spacious.
Rehob means “broad place,” carrying breadth within the name itself. The root also forms words for open space, so the roster contains an image of spaciousness alongside its named participants.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥāḇ: Broad or wide.
רָחָב
This adjective makes the root’s basic sense of breadth explicit.
merḥāḇ: Broad space or open expanse.
מֶרְחָב
This branch extends the root from width to the space that breadth creates.
THE PATTERN
Covenant becomes concrete when people are named as participants and their shared response is made visible.
Now those who pressed their seal were, Nehemiah, the governor, the son of Hachaliah, and Zidkijah,And he took the scroll of the covenant, and called it out in the ears of the people, and they said, All that the LORD has said we will do, and we will hear and respond.And they held fast in the teaching of the sent ones, and in sharing in common, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.THE THREAD
For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans of wholeness and not of harm, to give you a future and a cord to hold.Hashabiah shares the root חשב with the Hebrew word behind “thoughts” and “think” in this verse. The name opens into the same language of consideration and thought.
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