What Does Nehemiah 7:16 Mean?
The children of Bebai, six hundred and twenty-eight.
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
The children of Bebai, six hundred twenty and eight.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “children” shares its root with “build,” so this count pictures a family line being built forward across generations.
THE MEANING
This verse presents belonging as something carried through a household and made visible among the gathered people. The 628 descendants stand under a shared family name, held within a continuing line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Belonging is only individual, with no shared lineage holding people together.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
b-n-h
To build or establish.
The Hebrew word for “children” is connected to the root meaning “to build.” Each generation carries the family line forward, so the 628 are counted as a people held together through that continuity.
ALSO GROWS
banah: To build, establish.
בָּנָה
This is the root verb behind the word for children; the count evokes a household built across generations.
ben: Son, child.
בֵּן
The singular form names a child as part of the family line that the verse counts.
THE PATTERN
Belonging is carried through named family lines and made visible in the wider community.
The children of Bebai, six hundred and twenty-three.And the women who were her neighbors called out a name for him, saying, A son is born to Naomi, and they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And she said, Look, my maidservant Bilhah. Go in to her, and she shall bear upon my knees, that I too may be built up through her.The phrase “have children” translates a form of בנה (banah), “to build”: literally, “that I may be built up by her.” Nehemiah’s count of Bebai’s children carries that same image of a family line built forward through descendants.
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