What Does Nehemiah 7:19 Mean?
The children of Bigvai, two thousand and sixty-seven.
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 Bigvai, two thousand threescore and seven.THE KEY
The word for “children” is linked with the verb “to build,” so this count holds a household as something built across generations.
THE MEANING
The verse places one family line within a larger people and gives its count exactly: 2,067. Read now, it lets you see belonging as both particular, a name, and shared, a place within the whole.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
benei
GROWS FROM
בנה
banah
To build or construct; the word for children is traditionally linked with this root.
The word בְּנֵי (benei), “children of,” belongs to the word-family associated with בָּנָה (banah), “to build.” The count carries more than a headcount: it traces a household built through generations, with each child belonging to the line.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son, child.
בֵּן
This singular form names the family relationship gathered into the count.
binyan: Building, structure.
בִּנְיָן
This branch makes the building image concrete: the verse counts the members who give a family line its form across generations.
THE PATTERN
A household remains visible within a larger people when its members are held under a name and counted.
The LORD counts when he writes up the peoples; this one is born there. Selah.Then those who gladly took his word in were immersed, and that day about three thousand living souls were added to them.THE THREAD
Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.Nehemiah names the family with בְּנֵי (benei), “children of,” and Psalm 127 uses בָּנִים (banim), “children.” The census makes a lineage countable; the psalm reveals the value carried by the same word.
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