What Does Numbers 1:6 Mean?
Of Simeon; Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai.
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
Of Simeon; Shelumiel the son of Zurishaddai.THE KEY
Simeon’s name carries hearing, while his leader’s name joins wholeness to God and his father’s name speaks of the Rock of the Almighty, belonging here is more than a number.
THE MEANING
This line places Simeon among a people through names that carry meaning: hearing, wholeness with God, and a rock as foundation. You meet belonging as something carried through names and kinship, not as an empty tally.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a name and a place among others are only labels or numbers; here, each name carries a nature into the count.
THE ROOT
שִׁמְעוֹן
Shimʿon
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed.
Simeon carries the root of hearing in its name. The entry becomes more than a count: it holds the tribe’s name beside the act of hearing that gave it meaning.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This branch shows hearing as a response, giving Simeon’s name an active quality.
shemuʿah: A report or message; something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch links hearing to what is received and carried onward.
שְׁלֻמִיאֵל
Shelumiel
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Be whole, complete, or sound.
Shelumiel gathers the root of wholeness together with אֵל (El, God). The name holds wholeness in relation to God, adding a quiet depth to the census entry.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch shows the root’s sense of wholeness carried in Shelumiel’s name.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the root’s idea of completeness audible beneath the proper name.
צוּרִישַׁדָּי
Tsurishaddai
GROWS FROM
צור
ts-w-r
Rock or cliff; a firm foundation.
Zurishaddai joins צוּרִי (tsuri, my rock) with שַׁדַּי (Shaddai, the Almighty). The father’s name places rock-like steadiness beneath the line of hearing and wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
tsur: Rock or cliff.
צוּר
This is the seed word in Zurishaddai, giving the name its image of a firm foundation.
tsuri: My rock.
צוּרִי
This form appears within Zurishaddai and makes the image personal: the rock is named as the one’s own foundation.
THE PATTERN
Scriptural names carry nature and meaning into the lives they name.
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Because the LORD has heard that I was hated, he has therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon, Heard.And the nations shall see your alignment, and all kings your weight; and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written, which no one knows except the one who takes it.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Because the LORD has heard that I was hated, he has therefore given me this son also. And she called his name Simeon, Heard.Simeon’s name shares its Hebrew root, שמע (sh-m-ʿ), with the verse’s word “heard.” Numbers 1:6 keeps that root alive in the name itself: hearing is carried forward as part of Simeon’s identity.
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