Read with Me
Exodus 6:14-27 (HCSB)
These are the heads of their fathers’ families:
The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. These are the clans of Reuben.
The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. These are the clans of Simeon.
These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their genealogy: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.
The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their clans.
The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.
The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the clans of the Levites according to their genealogy.
Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.
The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri.
The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri.
Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon. She bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph. These are the clans of the Korahites.
Aaron’s son Eleazar married one of the daughters of Putiel and she bore him Phinehas.
These are the heads of the Levite families by their clans.
It was this Aaron and Moses whom the LORD told, “Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt according to their divisions.” Moses and Aaron were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt in order to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
Listen with Me
This truncated genealogical record of the descendants of Israel, beginning with the eldest son of Jacob, Reuben, but only going as far as Jacob’s third son, Levi, was designed to show where Moses and Aaron fell among those descendants. Levi he had three sons,: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
Moses and Aaron were the sons of Kohath’s son, Levis grandson, Amram. Amram had married his aunt, Jochebed, the daughter of Levi. By the way, due to the long reproductive life of the Israelites, this does not mean that Jochebed was older than Amram. She could easily have been the same age as Amram, or even quite a bit younger. That detail was not put into the record because it is insignificant to the continuing narrative.
The descendants of Levi are traced to the fifth generation by including Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron, who became the high priest after his father died. Moses then draws the narrative back to the present with the statement that the Moses and Aaron mentioned in this genealogy, those two great grandsons of Levi, are the same Moses and Aaron who were at that moment confronting Pharaoh with God’s demand that he release His people.
Pray with Me
Father, the way in which You directed Moses to record these events is fascinating. You are always drawing the threads together, continually reminding us that You were in the process of keeping the promise that You made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, starting more than 400 years earlier. Even though it seems to us that You took a long time to keep those promises, You were working the whole time, growing the children of Israel into a mighty nation within the greenhouse of Egypt, a nation that would be able to conquer the Promised Land with Your power behind them. But in all that time, over all those centuries of working and waiting, You never forgot. Thank You, Lord, for Your constant faithfulness to Your people. Amen.