What Does Numbers 2:22 Mean?
Then the tribe of Benjamin, and the lifted one over the children of Benjamin shall be Abidan the son of Gideoni.
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
Then the tribe of Benjamin: and the captain of the sons of Benjamin shall be Abidan the son of Gideoni.THE KEY
Benjamin means “son of the right hand,” and Abidan means “my father is judge,” so this roster makes belonging and leadership speak through names.
THE MEANING
This line holds Benjamin’s shared identity beside its captain’s particular name and named father. Benjamin carries the image of the right hand; Abidan carries judgment in his name. The verse presents a people and its leadership through the names that connect them.
THE ROOT
בִּנְיָמִין
Binyamin
GROWS FROM
ימין
yamin
Right hand or right side; also the south.
“Benjamin” in this verse is Binyamin. Binyamin combines בֵּן (ben, “son”) and יָמִין (yamin, “right hand”): its name is “son of the right hand.” The English name leaves that image quiet, but the tribe enters the verse carrying it.
ALSO GROWS
yamin: Right hand; right side.
יָמִין
This is the second element in Binyamin, giving the tribe’s name its image of the right hand.
yemini: Right-handed; a Benjamite.
יְמִינִי
This related form carries the right-hand element into the identity of Benjamin’s people.
אֲבִידָן
Avīdan
GROWS FROM
דין
din
To judge or render judgment.
Abidan joins אֲבִי (avi, “my father”) with דָּן (dan, “judges”), and is commonly understood as “my father is judge.” The captain’s name carries judgment within it, while Benjamin’s carries the right-hand image.
ALSO GROWS
dan: Judge; judges.
דָּן
This element appears at the end of Abidan, carrying judgment in the captain’s name.
din: Judgment; a case or claim.
דִּין
This related form makes the root’s language of judgment visible beneath Abidan’s name.
THE PATTERN
A people is shown through names that join collective identity to particular lives and roles.
And it came to pass, as her living soul was going out, for she died, that she called his name Benoni, son of my bowing low. And his father called him Benjamin, son of the right hand.Of Benjamin; Abidan the son of Gideoni.And the word pleased all the full crowd, and they picked out Stephen, a man full of trust and of the Set-Apart Breath, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, one who had come over, from Antioch.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as her living soul was going out, for she died, that she called his name Benoni, son of my bowing low. And his father called him Benjamin, son of the right hand.Genesis records the name changing from בֶּן־אוֹנִי (Ben-oni, “son of my sorrow”) to בִּנְיָמִין (Binyamin, “son of the right hand”). The tribe named here still carries that turn within its name.
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