What Does Numbers 26:35 Mean?
These are the sons of Ephraim after their families. Of Shuthelah, the family of the Shuthalhites. Of Becher, the family of the Bachrites. Of Tahan, the family of the Tahanites.
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
These are the sons of Ephraim after their families: of Shuthelah, the family of the Shuthalhites: of Becher, the family of the Bachrites: of Tahan, the family of the Tahanites.THE KEY
Ephraim’s name carries fruitfulness, and here that fruitfulness appears as three distinct, named family lines.
THE MEANING
Fruitfulness here is not abstract; it takes shape in distinct family lines, each named and traceable. You can belong to a larger people without disappearing into an unnamed whole.
THE ROOT
אֶפְרַיִם
ʾEfrayim
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ה
Bear fruit; be fruitful.
Ephraim’s name is tied to the root for being fruitful. Here that seed takes visible form in three separately named clans: fruitfulness becomes a growing family with distinct branches.
ALSO GROWS
pārāh: To bear fruit; to be fruitful.
פָּרָה
This is the verb connected to Ephraim’s name, giving the list of descendants a deeper sense of fruitfulness taking form.
hifranî: He made me fruitful; he caused me to bear fruit.
הִפְרָנִי
The same root appears in the explanation of Ephraim’s name in Genesis 41:52, linking the name directly to the fruitfulness now displayed in his family lines.
THE PATTERN
Fruitfulness is living capacity taking visible form in multiplication and distinct branches.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."They still bear fruit in gray hair; they are fat and green.I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.THE THREAD
And he called the name of the second the Fruitful, Ephraim, for God has made me bear fruit in the land of my bending low.Genesis connects Ephraim’s name to the root for being fruitful. Numbers 26:35 shows that fruitfulness branching into three named family lines.
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