What Does Nehemiah 11:5 Mean?
And Maaseiah the son of Baruch, the son of Col-hozeh, the son of Hazaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, the son of Shiloni.
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 Maaseiah the son of Baruch, the son of Col-hozeh, the son of Hazaiah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Joiarib, the son of Zechariah, the son of Shiloni.THE KEY
Zechariah means “Yah remembers,” so this chain of names preserves a person within a story that keeps each life in view.
THE MEANING
You meet a person here through a chain of named lives, each carried forward with its own meaning. Maaseiah means “work of Yah,” Baruch means “blessed,” and Zechariah means “Yah remembers”: work, blessing, and remembrance are held in the names around this life.
THE ROOT
זְכַרְיָה
Zekharyah
GROWS FROM
זכר
z-k-r
Remember, call to mind, keep in view.
Zechariah joins the root for remembering to Yah: the name says “Yah remembers.” In a genealogy, that name gives remembrance a human shape, the person is carried forward by name.
ALSO GROWS
zakar: Remember, call to mind.
זָכַר
This is the verb at the heart of Zechariah’s name, making remembrance part of the name’s meaning.
zeker: Remembrance, memorial.
זֵכֶר
This noun from the same root links a person’s name with being kept in view.
מַעֲשֵׂיָה
Ma'aseiah
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
Do, make; the related noun can mean a deed or work.
Maaseiah carries the work or deed word joined to Yah. The name places doing and making inside this lineage, where English shows only a sequence of fathers and sons.
ALSO GROWS
ʿasah: Do, make.
עָשָׂה
This verb is the root behind the work element in Maaseiah’s name.
ma'aseh: Deed, work.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun shares the root and gives the name its sense of work or deed.
בָּרוּךְ
Barukh
GROWS FROM
ברך
b-r-k
Bless; the same consonants also form a word for knee.
Baruch means “blessed,” and its root also carries the bodily image of the knee. The name holds blessing together with that image without reducing blessing to posture.
ALSO GROWS
barakh: Bless.
בָּרַךְ
This verb is the root behind Baruch’s name.
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This noun from the same root makes the blessing carried in the name explicit.
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared consonants preserve a bodily echo alongside the root’s meaning of blessing.
THE PATTERN
A genealogy makes continuity visible by preserving individual names within a line of descent.
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 Jesus himself began to be about thirty years old, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, who was the son of Heli.THE THREAD
For he does not slip for the ages; the aligned one is in remembrance of the ages.Zechariah’s name carries the root זכר (zakar, “remember”), and Psalm 112:6 uses the same root in זֵכֶר (zeker, “remembrance”). The psalm opens this genealogy as more than a record of descent: it is a keeping of persons in view.
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