The Tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 2:3-4:23): Families of Shelah & Zerah

More space is given to the family tree which stems from Judah than to that of any of the other tribes. This is as we would expect, for it is from the tribe of Judah that the line of promise comes.

Judah had five sons: Er, Onan and Shelah were born of a Canaanite woman, the daughter of Shuah (Gen.38:2-5), shown therefore as Bathshuah on the genealogical chart; Pharez and Zerah were the twin sons born to him of Tamar, the widow of his two eldest sons, Er and Onan (Gen.38:29-30). Er and Onan died childless, and the line of Pharez was split into two families relating to the two sons of Pharez, Hezron and Hamul (Num.26:21).

The four families of the tribe of Judah were thus the family of Shelah, the family of Zerah, the family of Hezron and the family of Hamul. In the genealogies of 1 Chronicles they are dealt with as follows:

Shelah        1 Chronicles 4:21-23
Zerah          1 Chronicles 2:6-8
Hezron       1 Chronicles 2:9 – 3:24
Hamul         Omitted

1 Chronicles 4:1-20 consists of small sections of genealogies, some of which clearly relate to the family of Hezron and others which are not obviously related to any of these four families.

The vast amount of space devoted to the family of Hezron is immediately noticeable. The reason is again that it is the line through whom the promises came; for David, and ultimately Jesus, were of the line of Hezron. Before looking at the line of Hezron, however, we will deal with the two subsidiary lines, those of Shelah and Zerah.

A. The Family of Shelah

Here the details are obscure, and the people shown are not necessarily direct descendants. Some interesting points may be gleaned, however.

1. The town of Mareshah (Josh.15:44) which is quite prominent in the history of Judah, was evidently named after a descendant of Shelah. It was one of the 15 cities which Rehoboam fortified in anticipation of an Egyptian invasion (2 Chron.11:8), and it was here, in the reign of Rehoboam’s grandson Asa, that God gave Judah a great victory over the vast army of Zerah the Egyptian (2 Chron.14:9-12). In the days of Asa’s son, Jehoshaphat, a prophet of God called Eliezer came from Mareshah to tell Jehoshaphat of his impending punish­ment because of his association with the wicked Ahab (2 Chron.20:37). We have added Eliezer and his father to the genealogy.
2. Certain members of this family “had the dominion in Moab”, probably in the days when David conquered the country (2 Sam.8:2).
3. Members of this family became craftsmen, one group being skilled in pottery and another in weaving fine linen. They did this work for the king, and when one considers the magnificance of Solomon’s court, with his many wives, and the palaces which he had, one can easily imagine how enough work could be provided to keep many such craftsmen employed full time.

B. The Family of Zerah

1 Chronicles 2:6 reads at first sight as though Zerah the son of Judah had five children called Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol and Dara. However, the occurrence of the last four names in 1 Kings 4:31 as though they were contempor­aries of Solomon leads us to suppose that we are being directed to the more significant descendants of Zerah, rather than actual sons.

1. The Line of Achan

Zimri does seem to have been an actual son of Zerah, or at least a close descendant. Zimri may be another name for the Zabdi of Joshua 7:1, although we have chosen to distinguish the two. The line significantly ends in “Achar, the troubler of Israel, who transgressed in the thing accursed”. The name seems to have been altered slightly from Achan (Josh.7:1), and the reason is that the Hebrew word for “troubler” is “Akar”.

It was the purpose of God that all that was in Jericho should be dest­royed, and Joshua solemnly warned Israel: “keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble (Heb, akar) it” (Josh.6:18). Achan broke the command and Israel were troubled, for they were defeated at Ai. When Achan and his family were about to be punished with stoning, Joshua said to him, “Why hast thou troubled (akar) us? the LORD shall trouble (akar) thee this day” (Josh.7:25). As for the place where this occurred, “the name of that place was called, The valley of Achor (mg. trouble), unto this day” (J6sh.7:26).

Perhaps the great lesson that the incident has for us, however, is that our greed can lead those near us astray also, for Achan’s whole family perished with him. No doubt they supported him in his greedy action, but the initial fault sprang from hid. “He that is greedy of gain troubleth (akar) his own house” (Prov.15:27). No wonder Achan is singled out for mention in Chronicles, for it was desirable that all the houses of Israel should avoid following after his sin.

2. The Ezrahites

When we come to deal with the rest of the genealogies of the Zerahites, then the matter becomes somewhat complicated and certain assumptions have been made. The family tree which we have constructed is what seems most probable to us. We must first state the reasoning behind the construction of the family tree which we have drawn up:

1. The other 4 names given in 1 Chronicles 2:6 as sons of Zerah are also found in 1 Kings 4:31 where they seem to be contemporaries of Solomon; wise men, yet not so wise as Solomon. They were therefore descendants of Zerah, not literally sons of Zerah.
2. Ethan is described as an Ezrahite. So is Heman in the superscription of Ps. 88. In 1 Chron.4:17-18 there occurs a piece of genealogy concerning the descendants of a certain Ezrah who cannot be linked with anyone else in the genealogies of Judah. We have assumed that this is the Ezrah from whom Ethan and Heman are descended.
3. In 1 Chron.4:1 five “sons” of Judah, Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur and Shobal are mentioned. Only one is literally the son of Judah; the rest are descen­dants. It seems reasonable to suppose that the sections of genealogy which follow are concerned with the descendants of these five. As the name Carmi appears in 1 Chron.2:7 connected with the family of Zerah, we have assumed that it is from him that the Ezrahite line of 4:17-18 comes.
4. We have no definite information to connect Mahol and his family with any particular part of the Ezrahite family; the link with Eshtemoa is a conjec­ture, the basis for which is given later.
5. We have adopted the RSV rendering of 1 Chron. 4:17-18 as the AV seems unin­telligible.

The most fascinating piece of information in the brief note about the family of Ezrah is that Mered, the son of Ezrah, married Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh. The only daughter of Pharaoh who seems likely to have married an Israel­ite is the one who adopted Moses. Perhaps she learned the Hope of Israel through this connection, became an outcast from her own people, and married a member of the tribe of Judah. The probability of this is strengthened by the fact that one of her three children was called Miriam, for the only other person of this name in the Scriptures is the sister of Moses.

Since we have already said that the Ezrahite family descended from Carmi, this places Carmi back into the period of slavery in Egypt. Achan could not therefore have been literally the son of Carmi, but must have been a descendant. Hence the dotted line in Fig.2.

The Ezrahite family ends in 1 Chron. 4:17-18 with four of the grandsons of Mered: Eshtemoa through his Egyptian wife, and Gedor, Soco and Zanoah through his Jewish wife. These four all founded towns in the hill country of Judah; for Eshtemoa see Josh. 15:50, and Gedor see Josh. 15:58.

For Soco and Zanoah we have two towns of that name to choose from in each case. Since Eshtemoa and Gedor were in the hill country (Josh.15:48), the correct Soco and Zanoah appear to be the ones mentioned in Josh.15:48 and 15:56, not the ones mentioned in Josh.15:34- 35, which were “in the valley” (Heb. Shephelah, referring to the sloping plateau between the coastal plain and the central spine of hills). It is possible, of course, that descendants of Soco and Zanoah each colonised two separate areas.

When we come to deal with Mahol and his four sons, we find that we have additional references only regarding Ethan and Heman. The superscription to Psalm 89 tells us that Ethan penned it, and by the same means we know that Heman wrote Psalm 88. We must not confuse them with the Heman and Ethan who were Levitical singers (1 Chron. 15:19); they are not termed Ezrahites, and the Ethan of that reference is of the Levitical family of Merari (1 Chron.15:17). The name “Mahol” means “dance”, and the word “machol” is used of praising God in dancing in Psalm 149:3 and 150:4. Psalms 88 and 89 are in that section of the book of Psalms (73 – 89) in which the psalms are generally written by the Levites.

This twofold connection with the Levitical function of praise and worship in the temple courts led us to put Mahol as a descendant of Eshtemoa, because this was one of the cities set aside for Aaron’s descendants (Josh.21:14; 1 Chron.6:57), and the other three were not. Eshtemoa was the grandson of Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah and the other three were grandsons of the unnamed Jewish wife of Mered. It is therefore appropriate that Eshtemoa was the one chosen to be the priestly city, because of the connection which Bithiah would have with the family of Moses, the brother of Aaron. Notice, too, that Moses’ sister Miriam was the leader of the dance in Israel (Ex.15:20).

The fact that Ethan was the inspired author of Psalm 89 and the contemporary of Solomon throws light on the psalm. The earlier part of the psalm is a wonderful meditation on the promises to David, perhaps made to David when Ethan was a very young man. However, it is clear from verses 38-45 that at the time when the psalm was written disaster had fallen on Israel.

From this we may place the time of writing in the reign of Rehoboam, when Ethan would have been an old man. He had seen the early promise of the reign of Solomon replaced by the idolatry, luxury and oppression of his later reign, the wicked nation split asunder into two antagonistic kingdoms, and finally the invasion of Shishak king of Egypt who plundered the newly-built temple of its costly treasures (1 Kings 14:25-26). Yet though sad, he did not despair, and his faith in God shines through in his earnest pleading for the fulfilment of the promises in the concluding verses of the psalm (46-51).