What Does Nehemiah 11:28 Mean?
And at Ziklag, and at Mekonah, and in the enclosures thereof,
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 at Ziklag, and at Mekonah, and in the villages thereof,THE KEY
Even the “villages” are called a place’s daughters, so the verse gives a settlement its identity through the communities that belong to it.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a named center and its surrounding settlements together as one lived landscape. Mekonah’s name carries the sense of a base or established place, while its “daughters” show that a place’s life extends beyond its center.
THE ROOT
מְכֹנָה
Mekonah
GROWS FROM
כון
kun
To be firm, establish, or set in place.
Mekonah is a place-name shaped by כון, the root of making firm and establishing. Beside the Hebrew’s “daughters” for its dependent settlements, the verse pictures a settled center whose identity includes the smaller communities joined to it.
ALSO GROWS
konen: To establish, set firm.
כּוֹנֵן
This verb makes the root’s sense of establishing active: a place is more than a name on a list; it is a settled presence.
nakhon: Firm, established, prepared.
נָכוֹן
This form describes what has been set in place, echoing Mekonah’s sense of a stable base.
THE PATTERN
A named center is described together with the surrounding settlements that belong to its inhabited whole.
And Israel took all these cities, and Israel settled in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon and in all its villages.Ekron, with her daughters and her courtyards.And Jesus went around all the cities and villages, teaching in their gatherings, heralding the good news of the governance, and healing every sickness and every weakness among the people.THE THREAD
He lifts me out of a roaring pit, out of the clinging mud, and sets my feet on rock, and sets my steps firm.Mekonah echoes כון, the root for establishing and setting firm. Psalm 40 uses that same root for feet and goings made firm, linking a place’s rootedness with a person’s newly secured footing.
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