What Does Nehemiah 7:48 Mean?
The children of Lebana, the children of Hagaba, the children of Shalmai,
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 Lebana, the children of Hagaba, the children of Shalmai,THE KEY
The list makes continuity visible by naming even the families whose stories receive only a line.
THE MEANING
Each named family has a place within a people, and belonging is carried through names across generations. Even a brief entry keeps an easily overlooked line in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Only the famous or individually celebrated count as belonging.
THE ROOT
בְּנֵי
bənê
GROWS FROM
בנה
To build; to build up.
The repeated word for “children” names a line that continues and builds across generations. English gives us a list of descendants; the Hebrew word also carries the image of a people being built up through those lines.
ALSO GROWS
ben: Son; descendant.
בֵּן
This singular form is the family word beneath “children of,” naming each line of descent in the list.
binyan: Building; structure.
בִּנְיָן
This related word gives the root’s building sense; here, each named family is part of the structure of a people.
THE PATTERN
A people is made visible when its members and their names are kept in view.
Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.Yet do not rejoice in this, that the breaths submit to you, but rejoice instead that your names have been written in the heavens.THE THREAD
Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.The same Hebrew word for children, בָּנִים (bānîm), is rooted in בנה (banah), “to build,” as in this list. Psalm 127:3 opens that wording further: children are not just entries in a line, but part of what is entrusted and built across generations.
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