Descend

Descend - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DESCEND, v.i. [L. To climb.]

1. To move or pass from a higher to a lower place; to move, come or go downwards; to fall; to sink; to run or flow down; applicable to any kind of motion or of body. We descend on the feet, on wheels, or by falling. A torrent descends from a mountain.

The rains descended, and the floods came. Mat 7.

2. To go down, or to enter.

He shall descend into battle and perish. Sam. 26.

3. To come suddenly; to fall violently.

And on the suitors let thy wrath descend.

4. To go in; to enter.

He, with honest meditations fed, into himself descended.

5. To rush; to invade, as an enemy.

The Grecian fleet descending on the town.

6. To proceed from a source or original; to be derived. The beggar may descend from a prince, and the prince, from a beggar.

7. To proceed, as from father to son; to pass from a preceding possessor, in the order of lineage, or according to the laws of succession or inheritance. Thus, an inheritance descends to the son or next of kin; a crown descends to the heir.

8. To pass from general to particular considerations; as, having explained the general subject, we will descend to particulars.

9. To come down from an elevated or honorable station; in a figurative sense. Flavius is an honorable man; he cannot descend to acts of meanness.

10. In music, to fall in sound; to pass from any note to another less acute or shrill, or from sharp to flat.

DESCEND, v.t. To walk, move or pass downwards on a declivity; as, to descend a hill; to descend an inclined plain. [But this may be considered as elliptical; on or along being understood.]

Descent - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DESCENT, n.

1. The act of descending; the act of passing from a higher to a lower place, by any form of motion, as by walking, riding, rolling, sliding, sinking or falling.

2. Inclination downward; obliquity; slope; declivity; as the descent of a hill, or a roof.

3. Progress downward; as the descent from higher to lower orders of beings.

4. Fall from a higher to a lower state or station.

5. A landing from ships; invasion of troops from the sea; as, to make a descent on Cuba.

6. A passing from an ancestor to an heir; transmission by succession or inheritance, as the descent of an estate or a title from the father to the son. Descent is lineal, when it proceeds directly from the father to the son, and from the son to the grandson; collateral, when it proceeds from a man to his brother, nephew or other collateral representative.

7. A proceeding from an original or progenitor. The Jews boast of their descent from Abraham. Hence,

8. Birth; extraction; lineage; as a noble descent.

9. A generation; a single degree in the scale of genealogy; distance from the common ancestor.

No man is a thousand descents from Adam.

10. Offspring; issue; descendants.

The care of our descent perplexes most.

11. A rank in the scale of subordination.

12. Lowest place.

13. In music, a passing from a note or sound to one more grave or less acute.

de-send', de-sent' (yaradh; katabaino, "go down"); (katabasis): Of Yahweh (Ex 34:5); of the Spirit (Mt 3:16); of angels (Ge 28:12; Mt 28:2; Joh 1:51); of Christ (1Th 4:16; Eph 4:9). "He also descended into the lower parts of the earth" is variously interpreted, the two chief interpretations being the one of the incarnation, and the other of the "descent into hell" (1Pe 3:19). The former regards the clause "of the earth," an appositive genitive, as when we speak of "the city of Rome," namely, "the lower parts, i.e. the earth." The other regards the genitive as possessive, or, with Meyer, as governed by the comparative, i.e. "parts lower than the earth." For the former view, see full discussion in Eadie; for the latter, Ellicott and especially Meyer, in commentaries on Eph.

H. E. Jacobs

Definition

A “descendant” is someone who is a direct blood relative of someone else further back in history.

• For example, Abraham was a descendant of Noah.
• A person’s descendants are his children, grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, and so on. Jacob’s descendants were the twelve tribes of Israel.
• The phrase “descended from” is another way of saying “a descendant of” as in “Abraham was descended from Noah.” This could also be translated as “from the family line of.”

(See also: Abraham, ancestor, Jacob, Noah, twelve tribes of Israel)

Bible References

• 1 Kings 9:4-5
• Acts 13:23
• Deuteronomy 2:20-22
• Genesis 10:1
• Genesis 28:12-13

Examples from the Bible stories

• __2:9 “The woman’s descendant__ will crush your head, and you will wound his heel.”
• __4:9 “I give the land of Canaan to your descendants__.”
• __5:10 “Your descendants__ will be more than the stars in the sky.”
• __17:7 “Someone from your family will always rule as king over Israel, and the Messiah will be one of your descendants__!”
• __18:13 The kings of Judah were descendants__ of David.
• __21:4 God promised King David that the Messiah would be one of David’s own descendants__.
• __48:13 God promised David that the Messiah would be one of his descendants. Jesus, the Messiah, was that special descendant__ of David.

Word Data

• Strong’s: H0319, H1004, H1121, H1323, H1755, H2232, H2233, H3205, H3211, H3318, H3409, H4294, H5220, H6849, H7611, H8435, G10740, G10850, G46900