In Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6), which is exactly what he does. And so, as Abraham’s generations unfold, they recapitulate the structure of Genesis 1–11.
Genealogies matter. The biblical narrative is fundamentally a record of events — births, deaths, kings enthroned, kings deposed, covenants made, covenants broken, and so on. The Bible’s genealogies are the backdrop against which these events unfold. As such, they are a basic part of the fabric of Scripture. They tell us when events happen and who is involved in them. And, by extension, they often give us clues as to why.
But before we dive into the (sometimes murky) details of the Bible’s genealogies, it will be helpful for us to consider them in broader redemptive terms.
Forming, Naming, Filling
At the outset of the biblical story, God creates the heavens and the earth. They start out like a blank canvas, formless and empty (Genesis 1:1). Then, over the course of six days, God carries out three important types of activities: he adds form to what he has made (e.g., by the division of night and day); he names what he has formed; and, last of all, he fills what he has formed (e.g., the day with the sun; the night with the moon and stars).
Afterward, God commissions man to continue his activities. More specifically, God commands man to be fruitful and multiply and to fill and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). The Bible’s genealogies are thus firmly anchored in the events of Genesis 1. They are a record of how and to what extent mankind lives out God’s commission as he forms, names, and fills God’s creation.
Genesis 1–11 Redux
In Genesis 4, Eve forms three children and assigns to each of them a name.1 “I have [formed] a man with the help of the Lord,” she says after Cain’s birth (Genesis 4:1). (The verb “formed” — Hebrew kanah — is generally translated as “acquired” in this verse, but it often means “formed”; indeed, it is the verb used in Psalm 139:13, where David says to God, “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”) Needless to say, Eve’s statement about the world’s first childbirth is significant. Like God, Eve adds form to what is formless, as her daughters have done ever since.
In the aftermath of Abel’s death, the lines of Cain and Seth begin to fill the earth. To some extent, the two lines unfold in parallel. For instance, both culminate in a threefold division — in Cain’s case with Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:20–22), and in Seth’s with Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32). And before that, each line reaches a mini-climax in the rise of a Lamech, who is a man of sevens. Cain’s Lamech is the seventh from Adam, heads up a family of seven (him, his two wives, his three sons, and his daughter), and says his death will be repaid with a seventy-sevenfold vengeance (Genesis 4:24). Meanwhile, Seth’s Lamech lives for seven hundred and seventy-seven years (Genesis 5:31), and he fathers Noah — the life of a man of eights who heads up a family of eight (1 Peter 3:20). Hence, while Cain’s line is terminated by the flood, Seth’s lives on to inhabit a new creation.
In the aftermath of the flood, the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth begin to multiply and fill the earth (in answer to a repeat of God’s command in Genesis 9:1). The result is the “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10.
Then, in Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6), which is exactly what he does. And so, as Abraham’s generations unfold, they recapitulate the structure of Genesis 1–11.
The events of Genesis 1 establish a twelve/thirteenfold structure composed of six environments (night, day, heaven, earth, sea, and land, formed on days one to three) filled by six created things (moon/stars, sun, birds, animals, fish, and humans, created on days four to six), or seven if we count plants (created on day three).2 In answer, the branches of Abraham’s family tree yield an array of twelve/thirteenfold generations: Nahor’s line opens into a generation of twelve (Genesis 22:21–24), as do Ishmael’s (Genesis 25:12–16) and Esau’s,3 and, last of all, Jacob’s line opens into a generation of twelve, or thirteen if we count Joseph’s sons (Genesis 48:5).
Meanwhile, just as the lines of Cain and Seth emerge from a background of three streams and divide into three streams, so too does the line of Abraham: Abraham is one of three sons, and his posterity divides into the sons of Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah (Genesis 11:27–28).