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1 Chronicles6:10

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1 Chronicles 6:10 — . Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

10

Johanan was the father of Azariah, who served as priest in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem,

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·yō·w·ḥā·nān hō·w·lîḏ ’eṯ- ‘ă·zar·yāh hū ’ă·šer ki·hên bab·ba·yiṯ ’ă·šer- šə·lō·mōh bā·nāh bî·rū·šā·lim

Word by word12 · parsed
וְיוֹחָנָ֖ןwə·yō·w·ḥā·nānJohananH3110
√ Yôwchânân — Jochanan, the name of nine IsraelitesConjunctive wawNounpropermasculine singular
Yôwchânân: Jochanan, the name of nine Israelites The name carries the theophoric ending -yāh, and Strong's warns at once that nine different Israelites wear it. That ambiguity is not incidental to this verse: JFB reports it is “doubtful whether the person in favor of whom this testimony is borne be Johanan or Azariah,” and Benson and Poole both float the possibility that this Johanan is the Jehoiada of 2 Kings 11.
הוֹלִ֣ידhō·w·lîḏwas the father ofH3205
√ yâlad — to bear youngVerbHifilPerfectthird person masculine singular
yâlad: to bear young (Hifil) The causative of the ordinary verb for giving birth, and the spine of 1 Chronicles 6:4-15. K&D draws the structural conclusion the form invites: “the purpose of the enumeration in 1 Chronicles 6:4-15 was to communicate the succession of high priests from Eleazar” down to Jehozadak. He also concedes that in genealogical lists the verb “may express mediate procreation,” so a link here may be a grandson, not a son: the register counts offices more reliably than it counts births.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
ʼêth: marker of the definite object Untranslatable; it simply marks Azariah as the one born.
עֲזַרְיָ֑ה‘ă·zar·yāhAzariahH5838
√ ʻĂzaryâh — Azarjah, the name of nineteen IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
ʻĂzaryâh: Azarjah, the name of nineteen Israelites Nineteen men in the Old Testament carry this name, and at least two of them are high priests in this very chapter's line. Barnes presses the arithmetic against the traditional reading: Zadok, who lived into Solomon's reign, “cannot have been succeeded by a great-great-grandson,” so the note about Solomon's temple belongs to the earlier Azariah. The commentators disagree, and the Hebrew does nothing to settle it.
ה֚וּאH1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Pronounthird person masculine singular
hûwʼ: he (she or it) A pronoun Hebrew could have omitted, inserted to single one man out of a list of twenty-two names. It is the register's only editorial gesture in this verse: out of an unbroken chain of begetting, one link is pointed at. Every commentator in the apparatus is really arguing about the antecedent of this one word.
אֲשֶׁ֣ר’ă·šerwhoH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
ʼăsher: who, which, that The relative that opens the singled-out clause.
כִּהֵ֔ןki·hênserved as priestH3547
√ kâhan — to officiate as a priestVerbPielPerfectthird person masculine singular
kâhan: to officiate as a priest A verb made from the noun “priest,” so the sentence says the priest priested. Poole and Benson both note the obvious objection, that all the men in this list did the same, and both answer that the point is manner rather than fact: “he filled his place well, and valiantly discharged his office” (Benson). Geneva names the deed it has in mind, that he “valiantly resisted king Uzziah.”
בַּבַּ֕יִתbab·ba·yiṯin the templeH1004
√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcPreposition-b, ArticleNounmasculine singular
bayith: a house (family, household, temple) One Hebrew noun covers dwelling, dynasty and sanctuary. In a chapter whose whole business is fathers and sons, the office is finally located not in a bloodline but in a building, and the building is named by the man who put it up rather than by the God who filled it. JFB and Poole agree on why: it is “described in this particular manner to distinguish it from the second temple, which was in existence at the time when this history was written.”
אֲשֶׁר־’ă·šer-thatH834
√ ʼăsher — who, which, what, thatPronounrelative
שְׁלֹמֹ֖הšə·lō·mōhSolomonH8010
√ Shᵉlômôh — Shelomah, David's successorNounpropermasculine singular
Shᵉlômôh: Shelomah, David's successor The king's name, not a priest's, is what dates the sanctuary. Gill records the tradition that in Solomon's reign the high-priesthood “was restored to Zadok, of the line of Eleazar,” after a stretch in the house of Ithamar: the same reign that raised the house reset the line that served in it.
בָּנָ֥הbā·nāhbuiltH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
bânâh: to build Qal perfect, a finished act. Reader caution: the standard lexical association between bânâh (build) and bēn (son) is a general feature of Hebrew, not a claim that this verse plays on it. What the verse does do is set one built thing beside a long chain of begotten ones, and then date the begetting by the building.
בִּירוּשָׁלִָֽם׃bî·rū·šā·limin JerusalemH3389
√ Yᵉrûwshâlaim — Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
Yᵉrûwshâlaim: the capital city The place-name that fixes the note in time twice over. By the time the Chronicler writes, Jerusalem stands again but the house named here does not, which is precisely why he has to say whose temple he means.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. One pronoun inside a list of names — 6:10

For twenty-two links the register says nothing but הוֹלִיד (hōlîḏ, H3205): A caused B to be born, B caused C. K&D notes the verb is “being repeated with every name,” and draws the conclusion that “the purpose of the enumeration in 1 Chronicles 6:4-15 was to communicate the succession of high priests from Eleazar.” Then, once, the chain stops and a free-standing pronoun appears: הוּא אֲשֶׁר, “he, the one who.” Hebrew did not need that pronoun; the relative clause would have run on without it. ⚙ Everything the commentators fight about in this verse hangs on that single unnecessary word, because the Chronicler points without saying whom he points at.

ii. Which man, and which deed — 6:10

Three readings sit side by side in the record. Benson and Poole, in almost identical words, take the singled-out man to be Azariah and the deed to be his stand against Uzziah, Poole writing that “so did all the rest, but it is implied that lie did it worthily.” Geneva states it flatly: he “valiantly resisted king Uzziah.” Gill reports both options and leans the same way, while noting that Zadok, not this Azariah, was the first to officiate in the finished house. JFB refuses to decide, calling it “doubtful whether the person in favor of whom this testimony is borne be Johanan or Azariah.” Barnes breaks with all of them on arithmetic: since Zadok “cannot have been succeeded by a great-great-grandson,” he holds that the notice belongs to the earlier Azariah of v. 9's line and has been attached to the wrong name. Pulpit closes the door from the other side: “Of Johanan and Azariah , his son, nothing can be found with any certainty.” ⚙ We record the disagreement rather than resolve it.

iii. The house that has to be identified — 6:10

The clause “in the house which Solomon built in Jerusalem” is the verse's own date-stamp, and the commentators read it as one. JFB: the temple is “described in this particular manner to distinguish it from the second temple, which was in existence at the time when this history was written.” Poole and Benson say the same, and Gill adds that “at the time of the writing of this there was another temple built, or building, by Zerubbabel.” ⚙ The force of that is easy to miss. A priest's whole warrant here is located in a building that no longer stands, described to a congregation standing in a different one. The register of unbroken fathers and sons ends, in K&D's reckoning of it, with Jehozadak carried to Babylon: “For this period twenty-two generations appear too few,” he says of the arithmetic, and even his generous count runs out at an exile. The succession is real, carefully kept, and mortal.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ This is the tool's own fallible reading, offered to be tested against the text. A genealogy is the least devotional thing in Scripture, and this one still cannot help making a judgment. Out of twenty-two names, one gets a sentence: הוּא אֲשֶׁר כִּהֵן, “he is the one who did the priest-work.” The verb kâhan (H3547) is made out of the noun for priest, so the commendation is almost a tautology until you notice that it is said of exactly one man in the list. What distinguished him is not stated here. The older readers supply it from elsewhere, from Uzziah at the altar or Athaliah in the palace, and they may be right; the Hebrew does not say.

What the verse does say plainly is where he did it: in a house, and the house has to be identified by its builder, because by the time this is written there is more than one and the one meant is gone. So the office is certified by a building that fell, held by a line that ended in Babylon, and praised in a man whose name nine other Israelites share. Faithfulness inside a structure that will not last is still recorded as faithfulness. ⚙ The line set apart below is this tool's own sentence and not Scripture.

Out of twenty-two names the register pauses on one man, and the only thing it can finally point to is that he did his work in a house that is no longer standing.

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The same two names, one verse earlier structural / thematic: confirmed

The immediately preceding link of the chain carries both names of this verse, which is what makes the displacement question possible at all: if Azariah son of Johanan and the earlier Azariah stand this close together, a marginal note about the temple could migrate between them. That is exactly Barnes's argument, that the notice “must, beyond a doubt, belong properly to the first.” ⚙ We report the mechanism; we do not endorse the confidence.

1 Chronicles 6:9

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3110 Yôwchânân (in 22 vv) and H5838 ʻĂzaryâh (in 44 vv). Both are common personal names, so the computed link is onomastic and contextual, not a quotation of any kind.

Johanan in the second-temple registers structural / thematic: confirmed

The Chronicler has to specify whose temple he means because another one is standing. Nehemiah's lists show the machinery of that later house keeping its own priestly register, with a Johanan named in it. ⚙ The link is onomastic rather than referential: this is not the same man. What it does show is the practice this verse belongs to, a community that wrote down who served where, and under whom, precisely because the line had already once been broken.

Nehemiah 12:22 · Nehemiah 12:23

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H3110 Yôwchânân (in 22 vv) at Nehemiah 12:22 and 12:23. A common name, so the verbal overlap alone proves only the shared register practice; the thematic reading above is ⚙ synthesis.

The priest who withstood a king flagged: verify source

The majority reading of the singled-out man sends the reader to Uzziah's attempt to burn incense, where an Azariah the priest confronts the king. Benson, Poole, Gill and Geneva all take that as the deed implied here; Geneva says he “valiantly resisted king Uzziah, who would have usurped the priest's office.” But JFB calls the identification doubtful, Barnes rejects it outright, and Pulpit says nothing certain can be recovered about these two men. ⚙ The link is therefore flagged: it is a commentators' identification, not a claim the Chronicler makes, and the Verifier returns no shared-lexeme basis for it.

2 Chronicles 26:17

basis: No Verifier candidate supports this pair: the basis is commentator identification only (Benson, Poole, Gill, Geneva affirm it; JFB calls it doubtful; Barnes assigns the notice to an earlier Azariah; Pulpit denies certainty). Provenance contested, so flagged rather than confirmed.

Where the names surface again, after the house fell structural / thematic: confirmed

Both names of this verse reappear in the last days of Judah and after, among the men left in the land and then in flight to Egypt. ⚙ No genealogical claim is being made here and the bearers are different men. The point is chronological irony: the register that dates a priesthood by Solomon's house is being read in a world where these same common names belong to the survivors of its destruction.

Jeremiah 43:2 · 2 Kings 25:23

basis: Verifier: Jeremiah 43:2 shares H3110 Yôwchânân (in 22 vv) and H5838 ʻĂzaryâh (in 44 vv); 2 Kings 25:23 shares H3110. Both lexemes are high-frequency personal names, so the recorded basis establishes name recurrence only; the reading drawn from it is ⚙ and deliberately under-claimed.

A house, a builder, and a son over the house typological

Hebrews argues that the builder of a house has more honour than the house, and that Moses was faithful in God's house as a servant while Christ is faithful over it as a son. ⚙ Read backwards onto this verse, the distinction is the one the Chronicler is forced into: he can only certify his priest by naming the man who built the building. The link is figural, not verbal. It cannot be otherwise: the Hebrew בַּיִת (bayith, H1004) and בָּנָה (bânâh, H1129) share no Strong's numbers with the Greek of Hebrews, and no NT citation of 1 Chronicles 6:10 exists.

Hebrews 3:3-6

basis: Cross-Testament (Hebrew to Greek), so no shared Strong's lexeme is possible and no verbal tier is available. Figural only: the house/builder/servant pattern, offered as a reading and not as a citation. Widely-held as a general typology of the temple; the application to this specific verse is ⚙ novel.

Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The line that runs out, and the priest who does not ancient/widely-held

⚙ The register's own logic is succession by mortality: each man priests until he does not, and a son is caused to be born to take the place. K&D traces it to its end, the high priests “from Eleazar” to “Jehozadak, whom Nebuchadnezzar caused to be carried away into Babylon.” Henry, commenting on the whole chapter, states the conclusion the apostolic reading draws from it: though many are useful to the church, “none but our great High Priest can make atonement for sin, nor can any be accepted but through his atonement.” ⚙ Hebrews 7:23-25 argues from exactly this feature of a priestly list, summarised rather than quoted here: the old priests had to be many because death ended each tenure, and the point of the contrast is a priesthood that needs no successor. ⚙ This verse supplies the raw material, one worthy man inside a long chain of replacements.

Hebrews 7:23-25 · 1 Chronicles 6:15

The house that had to be named by its builder ancient/widely-held

⚙ JFB, Poole, Benson and Gill all agree that “in the house that Solomon built” is written to distinguish it from a second temple already standing. The clause exists because sanctuaries are replaceable. Solomon himself, in the dedication of that house, says that heaven cannot contain God, much less this house; and John reports Jesus pointing at the successor building and naming his own body as the temple that will be raised. ⚙ The move from a house identified by its builder to a temple identified with a person is the redemptive-historical line this verse stands at the beginning of, though the Chronicler makes no such claim and the reading is offered to be tested.

1 Kings 8:27 · John 2:19-21 · Matthew 12:6

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text: BSB (CC0) with the Berean interlinear and Strong's for all parse and lexicon data. This unit is a single verse, a parenthesis inside the Levitical register of 1 Chronicles 6.

What is uncertain, and stays uncertain here: (1) the antecedent of הוּא in v. 10. Benson, Poole, Gill and Geneva read it of Azariah and connect it to Uzziah at the altar; Benson, Poole and Gill also record the alternative that it refers to Johanan, identified with Jehoiada of 2 Kings 11; JFB declares it doubtful; Barnes holds that the notice was displaced and belongs to the Azariah of the earlier generation, since Zadok “cannot have been succeeded by a great-great-grandson”; Pulpit says nothing certain can be recovered. We have not adjudicated between them and the Uzziah thread is badged “flagged: verify source” for that reason.

(2) The K&D entry in our source is capped: roughly 16,000 further characters of his discussion of the twenty-two generations, the Eli/Ithamar line and Josephus were not available to us. Our use of him is limited to what the quoted portion actually says, including his own concession that twenty-two generations “appear too few” for the interval he calculates and that hōlîḏ may cover mediate descent.

(3) The Verifier returned only onomastic candidates for this verse: every computed basis rests on the personal names H3110 and H5838, which occur in 22 and 44 verses respectively. No rare shared lexeme exists here, so no thread in this unit is tiered “verbal / quotation: confirmed,” and the Hebrews thread, being cross-Testament, could not be even in principle.

(4) Name etymologies are not asserted beyond what Strong's supplies. Gill's citations of Josephus and the Juchasin are reproduced as his testimony, not verified by us.

= human, public-domain source, quoted and named. = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)