Hebrew word · H867
אֶתְנִי
'etni
Ethni
A personal name found only here. It is usually tied to the root that means "give", or to the noun ʾetnan, "gift, payment", which would make it roughly "(my) gift" or "generous". The meaning is not certain.
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
A man of the tribe of Levi living at the time of Divided Monarchy, first mentioned at 1Ch.6.21;
son of: Zerah (H2226J);
father of: Malchijah (H4441); also called Ethni at 1Ch.6.41;
Another name of ye.a.te.ray (יְאָֽתְרַי "Jeatherai" H2979)
§ Ethni = "my hire"
an ancestor of Asaph
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 1 Chronicles 6:41
- Range of meaning
A personal name found only here. It is usually tied to the root that means "give", or to the noun ʾetnan, "gift, payment", which would make it roughly "(my) gift" or "generous". The meaning is not certain.
- Against the English
All English versions transliterate it as "Ethni" and no meaning is lost. The only uncertainty is about the name's origin.
- Used elsewhere in the period
It does not appear anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible. In the parallel Gershomite list at 6:21 (Hebrew 6:6), Zerah's son is called Jeatherai (Yeʾatray), not Ethni. Several commentators suggest the two names are variant forms of one name, or that one is a copying error for the other, since the consonants look alike in Hebrew script.
Where it appears
1 Chronicles · 1
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1 Chronicles 6:41 אֶתְנִ֥י Ethni
the son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah,
Here: A Levite of the clan of Gershom, an ancestor of Asaph. He appears only here. The name probably comes from the Hebrew root for "giving" or "gift", but that is not certain.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.