1 Chronicles 4:26 Meaning and Explanation
“And the sons of Mishma; Hamuel his son, Zacchur his son, Shimei his son.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →A genealogy usually moves toward something. This one is moving toward Shimei, whose sixteen sons and six daughters are announced in the very next line as an exception within a tribe that was struggling to multiply. Verse 26 lays the last three steps of the path to him, and the arrangement rewards a reader who slows down long enough to see where the names are heading.
The line from Mishma runs three more generations to Shimei. The verse mixes a plural heading with a single chain of descent, carrying Simeon's record forward to the one household the next verse singles out.
The Context of 1 Chronicles 4:26
Simeon's record begins at verse 24 with five sons of the patriarch. Verse 25 follows Shaul's descendants down to Mishma. Verse 26 takes Mishma as a new heading and continues through Hamuel, Zacchur, and Shimei. Verse 27 stops the chain to comment on family size across the tribe. From verse 28 the register turns from people to places, listing the settlements Simeon occupied until David's reign, and from verse 34 it names princes who led an expedition for pasture during the days of Hezekiah.
What Does 1 Chronicles 4:26 Mean?
A small tension sits in the opening words. The heading announces the sons of Mishma in the plural, and what follows is a single line of descent: Hamuel his son, Zacchur his son, Shimei his son. Hebrew records often use a plural heading loosely for descendants in general, so the phrasing likely means the family of Mishma rather than a set of brothers. Zacchur belongs to a root meaning to remember, a common element in Israelite names and fitting for a book built on remembering. Each link repeats the same two words, and the rhythm gives the passage the feel of a family reciting itself aloud from memory.
The next verse gives this chain its point. Shimei fathered sixteen sons and six daughters while the rest of his kindred saw few children and the tribe as a whole failed to multiply the way Judah did. Chronicles notices things like this. Elsewhere the same book pauses over Obededom's eight sons to say plainly that God blessed him. Fruitfulness in Scripture is treated as a gift with a giver, traced back to the word spoken over humanity at the beginning and repeated to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Verse 26 walks us down the corridor to one household where that gift was poured out in a generation when it was scarce nearby.
Scripture keeps holding out hope to those whose numbers look small. Isaiah called a barren woman to sing and to enlarge the place of her tent, promising more children to the desolate than to the settled, and Paul later quotes that promise when writing about the family God gathers through his own faithfulness. Shimei's crowded household in a shrinking tribe is a small early instance of the same pattern. Increase in the Bible follows the promise more often than the odds. That truth steadied Israel in exile and steadies anyone who counts what remains and wonders whether God can still build something from it.
1 Chronicles 4:26 in the Original Language
Zakkur (זַכּוּר), 'Zacchur' -- a Hebrew name from the root zakar, meaning to remember or keep in mind. It presents a child as one who is remembered, a hope that suits a family record written down and preserved for later generations.
Bible Verses Related to 1 Chronicles 4:26
“And Shimei had sixteen sons and six daughters; but his brethren had not many children, neither did all their family multiply, like to the children of Judah.”
- 1 Chronicles 4:27
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”
- Psalm 127:3
“Ammiel the sixth, Issachar the seventh, Peulthai the eighth: for God blessed him.”
- 1 Chronicles 26:5
“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.”
- Isaiah 54:1
Where 1 Chronicles 4:26 Echoes in Scripture
Psalm 127:3 calls children a heritage of the LORD and the fruit of the womb his reward, and the verses around it picture a household filled like a quiver. Read beside 1 Chronicles 4:27, where Shimei's twenty-two children stand out against a tribe with few, the psalm supplies the theology the Chronicler leaves unspoken. Verse 26 brings us to that doorway, naming the men through whom the line reached him.
How to Apply 1 Chronicles 4:26 Today
Every family has a generation that carried the others. Someone kept the faith when it would have been easier to drop it, and the people who came later inherited the benefit without seeing the cost. Verse 26 names three men whose whole recorded contribution was to live and to hand the line on. We can honor that kind of contribution in our own households by being reliable across the long middle years, when nothing dramatic is happening. Steady presence, ordinary provision, and a name kept clean are gifts that show up in the lives of people we may never meet.
Reflection & Prayer
Who in my family line carried something forward that I now enjoy, and have I ever thanked God for them by name? Father, you remember the people the world forgets. Thank you for the quiet links in my own chain. Make me a link worth having, dependable in the years when no one is watching, and let what I pass on be worth receiving. Amen.