Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
1 Chronicles 4:40 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 40. 40And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet, and peaceable; for they of Ham had dwelt there of old.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants.
Read It With
- 1 Chronicles 4:34–4:43
Describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants. Read 1 Chronicles 4:40 within 4:34–4:43. The complete unit records: Named leaders seek pasture, seize Hamite settlements in Hezekiah's days, and another band kills surviving Amalekites at Seir.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The genealogy ends by showing that land and clan memory can contain migration, expansion, dispossession, and violence. In this exact position, the line beginning “And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet,…” describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants.
Follow the Context
- Named leaders seek pasture, seize Hamite settlements in Hezekiah's days, and another band kills surviving Amalekites at Seir.
- The genealogy ends by showing that land and clan memory can contain migration, expansion, dispossession, and violence.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet,…”
In plain language: Describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants.
The line beginning “And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet,…” describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants.
Why it matters: The wording carries a material literary, historical, temple, royal-power, violence, ethnic, illness, gender, exile, reception, or misuse boundary.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The account does not authorize ethnic cleansing, genocide, settler violence, modern land entitlement, or hatred of people labeled Hamite or Amalekite.
What Remains True
Describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants. This concrete detail supports a bounded truth: Accounts of conflict must name agents, victims, land, loss, and literary judgment without converting ancient war into a modern command or ethnic hostility.
How It Can Shape Life
- Because this verse describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants, keep it inside 4:34–4:43, compare its Samuel-Kings relationship honestly, protect affected people from coercion or stigma, and apply only the accountable principle the complete unit supports.
Teach It Back
Explain why 1 Chronicles 4:40 describes the desired land as productive and formerly occupied by Ham's descendants. Use 4:34–4:43, paraphrase “And they found fat pasture and good, and the land was wide, and quiet,…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 1 Chronicles 4:34–4:43 — Simeonite expansion is remembered with displacement and killingSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
1 Chronicles 4:40 remains within this thought-unit limit: The groups, geography, dates, scale, terms translated 'destroyed utterly' and 'remnant,' and relationship to other Amalek traditions are historically and textually disputed.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 1 Chronicles 4:34–4:43, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 4:34–4:43
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 1 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 1 Chronicles 4:34–4:43, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗