06/17/2026
Lost In The Obscurity Of Genealogies
Admit it. Reading through the genealogies of the Bible is just boring. I don’t know anyone who says that such and such a verse from the genealogies is their favorite Bible verse. The genealogies are something that most of us skim over when reading.
Having said that, I have found some interesting things that are somewhat obscure in the genealogies. In most cases there is no further explanation, just a straightforward, matter-of-fact statement: boom! I have to admit that most of these were pointed out to me by others - but that’s the way it should be with learning things of the Bible and life itself, isn’t it? As James Fenimore Cooper said, “Advice is a debt that the old owe the young.” In this case, it isn’t advice, but Biblical knowledge that must be passed down.
One thing that the genealogies reveal to us is the authenticity of the Bible. These were real people who lived and their stories show us their relationship with the Living God, or in the case of some, their rebellion “against the LORD and against His Anointed” (Psalm 2:2). In the case of 1st Chronicles and post-captivity books of the Bible, they show us the lineage of those who returned and were considered true Israelites. That lineage also includes the ancestry of Jesus and it can be traced back to Adam.
The genealogies of the Bible don’t normally include women, but in Matthew’s Gospel women are included. Matthew includes five women in Jesus’s genealogy, and three aren’t even Jewish! Only Mary and Bathsheba were Jewish. The other three women were Gentiles: Tamar and Rahab the harlot were Canaanites, and Ruth was a Moabite. This suggests that Jesus shares in all of our humanity, and not just Jewish blood.
Like me, you may have been taught that prehistoric man was rather primitive and that a number of the technical advancements of mankind took place in the last few millennium. The genealogies in the early chapters of Genesis paint a different picture. In Genesis 4, it tells of Jubal, “the father of all those who play the harp and flute” (or ‘pipe’), and of “Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron.” Not your typical cavemen, are they? When you consider the fact that the people who lived before the Flood lived hundreds of years, it is not improbable to conclude that in their lifetime they could become very advanced in the crafts mentioned.
But back to genealogies. In the post-Flood records, in Genesis we learn of the descendants of Eber, from which the designation ‘Hebrew’ is believed to originate. In that passage we read, “To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan” (Gen 10:25; also in 1 Chron. 1:19). What does that even mean??? Does this refer to something like in the Sci-Fi movie, Crack in the World? More than likely, since it is in the broader context of the Tower of Babel, it refers to the divisions of people and languages: “So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city” (Gen. 11:8). How God scattered the people isn’t described, so we can only imagine.
There are other points of interest in the genealogies, but I’ll only point out one that I learned recently that comes from the genealogies of 1st Chronicles. If you know anything about 1st Chronicles, you’ll know that the first nine chapters are basically genealogies, intertwined with certain historical events. In 1 Chronicles 4:17,18, we read:
“The sons of Ezrah were Jether, Mered, Epher, and Jalon. And Mered’s wife bore Miriam, Shammai, and Ishbah the father of Eshtemoa. His wife Jehudijah bore Jered the father of Gedor, Heber the father of Sochoh, and Jekuthiel the father of Zanoah. And these were the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, whom Mered took.”
This is the daughter of Pharaoh who saved baby Moses, as told in the Book of Exodus. There in Exodus 2:5-10, she is not named even though she did a courageous thing in saving this Hebrew baby, who in God’s timing, would be the deliverer of God’s people from slavery in Egypt. Interestingly, her name, Bithiah means “daughter of God.” Thankfully her name has been preserved for us in one little note found in the genealogies of the Bible!
Perley
