the whole setting of a person's birth: their native land, their kindred, or their offspring, depending on what the context has in view
This one Hebrew word gathers into a single term what English keeps in separate boxes: the place you were born, the people you were born among, and the children born to you. It is built directly from the verb "to give birth," so every use circles back to the fact of being born; the context decides which side of that fact is in view.
The one word can lean toward any of four things:
- the place of one's birth, a native land or homeland
- the kin one is born among, one's relatives or people
- the children born to a person, their offspring
- the bare fact or circumstances of being born
In the stories of Abraham and Jacob the land and the people fuse and should not be pried apart: to leave one's birth-circle is to leave both the country and the family in one act. By the time of Esther, in exile with no homeland left to point to, the word had drifted toward one's עַם, the people one belongs to. It is worth keeping distinct from the closely related תּוֹלֵדוֹת, which looks forward to a line of descendants rather than back to where and to whom a person was born.
Nuances
In the call of Abram, whether the word means his kindred or his native land, and whether "your land and your birth-circle" is one idea or two.
- majorityKindred: the three phrases narrow from country to clan to father's house, so this middle term names the extended family Abram must leave.; BDB, s.v. מוֹלֶדֶת; G. Wenham, Genesis 1-15 (Word Biblical Commentary, 1987); C. Westermann, Genesis 12-36 (Continental Commentary, 1985)
- minorityNative land: "your land and your birth-circle" is a single idea, "your native land," set beside "your father's house."; E. A. Speiser, Genesis (Anchor Bible, 1964); R. Alter, The Five Books of Moses (Norton, 2004)