Bible Word Study
חֶלְאָה
Chelʼâh · Chelah, an Israelitess
חֶלְאָה
Chelah, an Israelitess
Definition
Chelah is a proper name referring to an Israelite woman mentioned in the genealogy of Judah in 1 Chronicles. She is listed as one of the two wives of Ashhur, the father of Tekoa (1 Chronicles 4:5). The text notes that she, along with her co-wife Naarah, bore children to Ashhur, establishing a lineage within the tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 4:7). As a personal name, it carries no other semantic meaning beyond identifying this specific individual within the biblical record.
Biblical Usage
The name Chelah is used exclusively in the genealogical lists of 1 Chronicles 4:5 and 4:7. Its usage is purely onomastic, serving to identify a person within a family lineage. There are no narrative stories or other contexts associated with the name; it appears solely to document ancestry within the tribe of Judah during the post-exilic compilation of Israel's history.
Etymology
The name Chelah (חֶלְאָה) is identical in form to the common Hebrew noun chel'ah (H2457), which means 'rust', 'filth', or 'impurity'. It is derived from the root חלא, which conveys a sense of being tarnished, defiled, or sick. As a personal name, it was likely not meant to describe the bearer's character but may have been given for other cultural or phonetic reasons, a common practice in ancient Semitic naming conventions.
Semantic Range
In ancient Israelite culture, names were often significant and could reflect circumstances of birth, parental hopes, or attributes. The name Chelah, sharing its form with a word for 'impurity', might seem unusual. This highlights that biblical names were not always 'positive' by modern standards; sometimes they were descriptive, commemorative, or simply traditional sounds without a direct link to their common noun meaning for the individual bearing them. Naarah (Naʻărâh, H5292) — The other named wife of Ashhur, mentioned alongside Chelah in the same genealogy.
Word Details
How this works
Definitions are from the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB, 1906, public domain). Concordance and morphology data are from the OSHB (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible).
Full methodology & sources →References
- Abbott-Smith, G. (1921) A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. [Public Domain]
- Brown, F., Driver, S.R. and Briggs, C.A. (1906) A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Public Domain]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Tyndale Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (TBESG). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Tyndale House, Cambridge (n.d.) Translators Formatted full LSJ (TFLSJ). STEPBible. Available at: https://www.stepbible.org. [CC BY 4.0]
- Thayer, J.H. (1889) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. [Public Domain]
- Gesenius, W. (1846) Gesenius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament. [Public Domain]
- Dodson, J. (2010) Greek Lexicon. Biblical Humanities. [CC0]