Tag: toledot

Outside of Dra Abd el Naga in the Egyptian desert.
Bible

Understanding Genealogies in the Bible (part 2)

Toledot, or Hebrew genealogies, often operate under slightly different rules than Western genealogies.  Two weeks ago we discussed a bit about how genealogies work in the Bible.  However, we can say more, which is why a part 2 is necessary.

 

Rules of the Toledot

Unlike what is commonly found in western genealogies, toledot often exclude intermediaries.  These intermediaries were descendants that either did not reproduce or weren’t significant to the overall outcomes.  Let’s take for example the toledot of Moses in Exodus 6:

And these are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon and Kohath and Merari; and the length of Levi’s life was one hundred and thirty-seven years.  The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, according to their families.  The sons of Kohath: Amram and Izhar and Hebron and Uzziel; and the length of Kohath’s life was one hundred and thirty-three years.  And the sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi.  These are the families of the Levites according to their generations.  And Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses; and the length of Amram’s life was one hundred and thirty-seven years.  [Exod 6:16-20]

Exod 1:5 states that 70 men entered Egypt who descended from Jacob.  When the Israelites left Egypt, those 20 years or older were counted to number at least 603,550 according to the weight of the half-shekel redemption offering [Exod 38:26].  If we look at the generations of the toledot of Moses, we see three generations being born in Egypt.  Levi begat Kohath, Kohath begat Amram, and Amram begat Moses.  Many of the toledot from this period in the book of 1 Chronicles are quite short, usually three or four generations.  The text makes it clear that Exodus 6 is naming the “families of Levites” or clans and not specifically the individuals involved per se.

 

The Unconventional Lifespans

If we took the toledot at face value, this becomes a demography problem.  According to the CIA World Factbook 2016-2017 edition, the country with the highest fertility is Niger with 6.76 children/woman.  So assuming that each person of the seventy original descendants of Jacob had both a wife and children, then it would take between 6 and 7 generations to produce a population of around 500,000.

The other thing one might notice is the unconventional length of the lifespan of the Moses’ ancestors.  Levi lived to 137, Kohath to 133, and Amran to 137 years.  There does not appear to be anything symbolic about these numbers.  These numbers are not numerologically significant factors; such as 7, 12, or 40.

Now, I wouldn’t say that people living to 137 years is out of the question.  Early calendar systems had idiosyncrasies that could account for some extended dating.  Not to mention that the wages of sin could have accelerated death by diminishing potential lifespans.

But I think that a simpler solution is also possible.  In many toledot, the chronicler may not be using the length that the person was alive.  For example, in Exod 6:20, the chronicler says that the “years of the life of Amran were seven and thirty and a hundred.”  The “years of the life of” may refer to living memory, which is the years that others have a living memory of the person.  This would abbreviate the genealogy for the authors while using a definition for life that is part of the repertoire of the ancient Near East.

 

 

A torah scroll.
Bible

Understanding Genealogies in the Bible (part 1)

About 15 years ago I led a small Bible study group.  We would take a book of the Bible and study it one chapter at a time.  When I came to the end of the book, I would ask the group, “Which book do we study next?”  And of course, nobody wanted to decide what the next book would be.

So, I would say “If nobody can decide what book we are going to study next, I get to pick.  And my choice would be the book of Numbers with all those lovely genealogies.”  No sooner would I say that, and someone would propose a book (a different book) to study.

The typical Bible reader has an aversion to genealogies.  Modern readers often see genealogies as the “boring bits” that one needs to buzz past to get to the interesting stuff.  I think that this outlook is unfortunate because genealogies were the literary device of choice that ancient writers used to give us the really juicy info.

 

The Purpose of Genealogies

In the ancient Hebrew, genealogical lists are called toledot.  An important consideration is that toledot are not quite the same as what we call a “genealogy” in the West today.  Knowing the technical difference between a toledot and a genealogy can help us navigate the Hebrew Scriptures.

In the West, genealogies normally trace the ancestors of a person going as far back as possible.  Hebrew toledot sort of do the opposite.  Toledot start with a well-known person and attempt to trace that person’s descendants.  The purpose of a toledot is not to establish pedigree as much as it is to show the person’s posterity.  So, in effect, the ancient Israelites believed that the actions of a person would have outcomes that would manifest generations down the line.

Ancient writers used these toledot for didactic purposes.  Often the toledot sets up the historical context, but the writer could also use it to convey a moral lesson.  Most western genealogies lack this didactic component.

 

The Genesis 5 Toledot

One example of a toledot comes from Genesis 5 where we find the posterity of Adam (of the Garden of Eden infamy).  We see in Genesis 5 the following structure:

And <Person 1> lived <Number A> years and became father of <Person 2>,  And <Person 1> lived <Number B> years after he was father to <Person 2>, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of <Person 1> were <Number A+B> years and he died.

The writer repeats this structure from Adam to Jared six times.   Then on the seventh generation, Enoch doesn’t die but it taken away instead [Gen 5:24].  This disruption of the normal (intentionally monotonous) pattern using antithesis shows what this toledot is really about.  The subject is that mankind is now beset with death without relief.

Adam sinned and fell from grace largely causing the mess on what we call planet Earth.   God created Adam in a perfect world that had no death.  The toledot in Genesis 5 is to show the reader Adam’s posterity–his actions which caused death to rule unchecked.

 

Who’s Who

The other thing that genealogies can do is establish why something happened.  In 2 Samuel 6, Uzzah was struck dead by God after touching the Ark of the Covenant [2 Sam 6:7].  The difficulty here is that touching the Ark was not in and of itself an offense.  Priests had handled the Ark several times in its history with impunity.  So what gives?

The first thing is that the reader may notice is that the Ark was placed on an ox-cart [2 Sam 6:3], which was forbidden since it was to be carried only by its poles [Exod 25:14].  But this alone probably would not have resulted in condign action.

The other thing we are told is the genealogy of Uzzah in verse 4.  He was the son of Abinadab.  Abinadab was the son of Jesse and brother of King David [1 Sam 17:13, 1 Chr 2:13], which makes Uzzah the nephew of the king.  Moreover, this makes Uzzah from the tribe of Judah.  Only Israelites from the tribe of Levi and of those only descendants of Kohath were permitted to carry the Ark [Num 4:15].  Although one offense may have been overlooked, two impious actions were seen as irreverence [2 Sam 6:7].

Toledot can give the modern Bible reader fascinating information if we take the time to try to understand them.