Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Exodus · About this commentary
A Genealogy in the Middle of a Crisis
Exodus 6:14-30
14 These are the heads of their fathers’ houses. The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, and Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the families of Reuben. · WEB
The narrative stops for a family register, and what it establishes is that the deliverers are ordinary men with traceable ancestry.
These are the heads of their fathers' houses Exodus 6:14.
A list interrupts the action at its least convenient point, between a refusal and the first plague. It is easy to read as an intrusion. It is better read as a credential, and three things about its construction show what it is for.
First, it stops early. Reuben and Simeon are given a line each, Levi is given twelve verses, and the other nine tribes are not mentioned at all. This is not a genealogy of Israel; it is a genealogy of two men, and it runs only as far as it needs to reach them.
Second, it is unflattering. Levi's line is traced through Kohath to Amram, who took Jochebed his father's sister to himself as wife Exodus 6:20 — a marriage the law given at Sinai will afterward forbid outright Leviticus 18:12. The register does not hide it, and it does not defend it either. It also names Korah Exodus 6:21, who will lead a rebellion, and Nadab and Abihu Exodus 6:23, who will die at the altar. A list assembled to glorify the family would have been assembled differently.
Third, it insists on identification. These are that Aaron and Moses to whom Yahweh said, "Bring out the children of Israel from the land of Egypt"... These are that Moses and Aaron Exodus 6:26–27. The phrase is repeated with the names in reversed order, and the effect is legal rather than literary. The men who are about to stand before a king and speak for God are placed on a family tree, in a tribe, with parents and cousins and nephews who can be named.
That is the point of putting it here. Egypt's kings claimed descent from gods, and their authority rested on the claim. The two men opposing them are shown to be nothing of the kind. They are great-grandsons of Levi, born to a couple whose ages are recorded and whose relatives include a rebel and two priests who will be struck down. Whatever weight their message carries does not come from their ancestry, and the ancestry is printed so that no one can suppose otherwise.
The interruption ends by returning to the exact sentence it broke off at. Yahweh said to Moses, "I am Yahweh. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I tell you." Moses said before Yahweh, "Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh listen to me?" Exodus 6:29–30. The objection is repeated word for word from before the list, and this repetition is deliberate: the narrative wants the reader to see that nothing has moved. The man has been given a name, seven promises, and a pedigree, and he is still standing where he was.
held with reason What this mark means