The Family Tree

notes

• the middle four have no mothers at all — Irad, Mehujael, Methushael and Lamech arrive by plain begat — four fathers in a row and not one woman named
• then it flips entirely — At Lamech the verb changes. Adah bare Jabal. Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain. The mothers become the subject, and the father drops out of the sentence
• Adah and Zillah — two wives to one man — the first time in the tree
• this whole branch — not one person in it is ever blessed, and not one is ever given an age

notes

• “and he begat sons and daughters” — the phrase closes every one of the ten generations. Each man plainly has other children. The chapter names exactly one per generation and leaves the rest as a single unnamed clause
• not one mother in the entire chapter — Ten generations, twenty numbers, and every birth is a father who begat. Cain's line runs alongside it and names four women. This one names none
• this whole branch — the only stretch in the tree where firstborn and blessed are the same person, every generation — ten in a row

notes

• Canaan — Ham's son — cursed for what his father did, a generation down
• four women on the boat — and the text gives no name for any of them, though everyone alive after this comes through one

notes

• no mothers anywhere in Genesis 10 — the whole map of nations is handed down father to son, and not one woman appears in it

notes

• Canaan — the cursed son and the name of the land that gets promised away — eleven peoples out of one man
• the same names turn up in the other branch — Havilah is Cush's son here and Joktan's son under Shem. Sheba is Raamah's son here, Joktan's son under Shem, and Jokshan's son under Abraham. Dedan is Raamah's here and Jokshan's later. And Ludim sits under Ham while Lud sits under Shem
• no mothers anywhere in Genesis 10 — thirty names in this branch alone, handed down father to son, and not one woman appears

notes

• Shem has five sons and only one of them is ever aged — Elam, Asshur, Lud and Aram get a name and nothing else. Arpachshad — the third one listed — gets both numbers, and the whole rest of the book comes out of him
• Eber's line forks and only one fork is counted — Peleg and Joktan are brothers. Peleg gets two ages and carries on to Terah. Joktan gets thirteen named sons and not a single number among them
• Asshur appears twice — he is Shem's son here, and in the same chapter Assyria is something Nimrod's kingdom spreads into. The text puts the same name on both sides of the family

notes

• no mothers here either — Genesis 11 runs nine more begats and names no woman until Sarai, at the very end of the chapter
• “and begat sons and daughters”, again — every generation here has unnamed children too. Two full chapters of genealogy, and the text names one son per man and waves at the rest
• the ages are here and not in Genesis 10 — the exact same men — Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg — appear in both chapters. In Genesis 10 they are a map with no numbers. In Genesis 11 they are a ledger. Only the branch that leads to Abram gets counted twice

notes

• Sarai — Abram's wife and his half-sister — same father, different mother
• Milcah — Nahor's wife and his niece — her father Haran was Nahor's brother
• Bethuel — Nahor's son and Haran's grandson — both brothers are his grandfathers
• Lot — Abram's nephew and, by his own daughters, the father and grandfather of Moab and Ammon — his own household is the next node
• the mothers here — Terah has four children by at least two women, and not one of those women is named

notes

• the fathers here are also the grandfathers — Lot is the father of Moab and Ben-ammi and their grandfather. The daughters are their mothers and their half-sisters
• the daughters name the sons — both boys are named by their mothers, and both names point straight back at what happened — from the father, and son of my kin
• four people in this house and three have no name — the wife, the elder daughter and the younger daughter are all named only by their position

notes

• Ishmael's line is Egyptian on both sides — his mother Hagar is Egyptian, and “his mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt” while he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran. The cast-out son is married straight back into the country his mother came from
• Sarah — his wife and his half-sister
• Ishmael — Abraham's son and, later, Esau's father-in-law
• Keturah — bears six sons and the text never says where she came from
• the same names again — Sheba and Dedan are already Raamah's sons under Ham — third time for Sheba. Asshurim echoes Asshur, Shem's son. And Hanoch is the same Hebrew name as Enoch, which the book has already used for Cain's son and for the man who was taken
• twelve princes, and the text says so out loud — “twelve princes according to their nations.” The cast-out son gets exactly the number the chosen grandson will get. Two sets of twelve, and only one of them is ever counted in years
• and a sister at the end of the list, again — Ishmael's daughter is introduced twice as “the sister of Nebajoth” — the same construction as Naamah in Cain's line and Timna among the Horites. That is now three branches outside the counted line that stop to name a sister
• the sons sent east — Abraham gives Keturah's six “gifts” and sends them away from Isaac while he is still alive. Then the book keeps quietly coming back to them

notes

• the text stops and counts them — “these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother” — eight sons, tallied out loud, plus four more by the concubine Reumah. Twelve in one household
• this genealogy names its mothers — “Milcah, she hath also born children… and his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare also.” Like Cain's line, and unlike Genesis 5, 10 and 11
• and it ends on a woman — after twelve sons the list finishes: “and Bethuel begat Rebekah.” A daughter, last, exactly where Cain's line put Naamah
• two Arams and two Uzes — Kemuel fathers an Aram — but Aram is already Shem's son. And Uz is Nahor's firstborn here, while another Uz is Aram's son under Shem. The same names keep landing in both branches
• Milcah — Nahor's wife and his niece
• Rebekah — Isaac's wife and his first cousin once removed
• Leah and Rachel — Jacob's wives and his first cousins — their father Laban was his mother's brother
• Bilhah and Zilpah — mothers of four tribes, and the text never says where either came from

notes

• Rebekah — Isaac's wife and his first cousin once removed

notes

• every one of the twelve is borne, not begotten — the whole tribe list is built on she bare — four women as the subject, and the mothers are what the chapter is actually tracking
• Leah and Rachel — Jacob's wives and his first cousins and sisters to each other
• Bilhah — Jacob's concubine and, later, taken by Reuben — his own son
• the birthright — the firstborn loses it, and it splits two ways — the rule to Judah, the double portion to Joseph

notes

• ★ the wives do not match between the two chapters — Genesis 26:34 says Esau at forty took Judith, daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath, daughter of Elon the Hittite. Genesis 36 lists Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite, and calls Basemath Ishmael''s daughter. So Elon''s daughter is Basemath in one chapter and Adah in the other; Basemath is a Hittite in one and an Ishmaelite in the other; and Judith is not in the second list at all
• the whole chapter is sorted by which wife — “these were the sons of Adah… these were the sons of Basemath… these were the sons of Aholibamah.” Even the grandsons are filed under a grandmother. Esau's genealogy is organized by the mothers, and the counted line's genealogies never are
• the mothers are named as bearers too — “Adah bare to Esau Eliphaz; and Basemath bare Reuel…” and “Timna… bare to Eliphaz Amalek.” Same construction as Cain's line
• Basemath / Mahalath — Esau's wife and his first cousin — her father Ishmael was his father's half-brother
• Aholibamah — Esau's wife and a Horite — daughter of Anah, granddaughter of Zibeon, of the people already living in the land he moves into
• names borrowed from the other side — Korah is Esau's son here and also Izhar's son in Levi's house. Zerah is Reuel's son here and also Tamar's twin in Judah's house. Reuel is Esau's son here and also the name of the priest of Midian who takes Moses in
• this whole branch — a full chapter, three peoples married into, eight kings — and not one person in it is blessed or given an age

notes

• Tamar — Judah's daughter-in-law and the mother of his sons — married to Er, then Onan, then bearing twins by their father
• Perez and Zerah — Judah's sons and his grandsons' half-brothers
• Tamar — the one woman here whose people are never given at all — and the line runs through her

notes

• Ephraim and Manasseh — Jacob's grandsons and counted as his own sons — adopted up a generation, and half Egyptian
• Ephraim — the younger and the blessed, by a father who deliberately crossed his hands and refused to be corrected

notes

• seventy — the same count as the nations — Genesis 10 divided the whole world into seventy peoples. Genesis 46 counts this one household at seventy. One family the size of a world
• not a single age in the entire list — fifty-odd names, four generations, and the text gives no number for any of them except the total
• two women in seventy — Serah, Asher's daughter, is named in a list of sons for no stated reason. And Dinah is counted in the total. Everyone else is a man
• the Canaanite mother is the one thing flagged — the list names no other mother — but it stops to say Simeon's Shaul was “the son of a Canaanite woman.” The only maternal detail given is the one that marks a son as mixed
• names doubling inside the family now — Hezron is Reuben's son and also Perez's. Bela is Benjamin's firstborn and also an Edomite king. Shaul is Simeon's son and also an Edomite king. Elon is Zebulun's son and also the Hittite whose daughter Esau married

notes

• Jochebed — Amram's wife and his aunt — she is his father Kohath's sister
• Moses and Aaron — Jochebed's sons and her great-nephews — she is their father's aunt
• Korah — Moses' first cousin — his father Izhar was Amram's brother
• Zipporah — Moses' wife and, through Keturah's son Midian, a very distant cousin
• Miriam is the exception — Aaron and Moses are both borne — she bare him Aaron and Moses — and Miriam is not in that sentence at all. She has to be added from elsewhere
• the only two mothers named in the chapter marry in — Jochebed and Elisheba. Every other woman in this genealogy is missing, including the wives of Gershon, Merari, Izhar, Hebron, Uzziel and Korah
• Putiel — Phinehas' mother is named only as somebody's daughter, and nobody knows who Putiel is
• Elisheba comes from Judah — Aaron marries out of Levi into the tribe that got the rule. The priest line and the ruling line are joined in the first generation of both