The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible
The Children of Leah
Genesis 46:8–15 — The Children of Leah. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.
8Now these are the names of the sons of Israel (Jacob and his descendants) who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
wə·’êl·leh šə·mō·wṯ bə·nê- yiś·rā·’êl ya·‘ă·qōḇ ū·ḇā·nāw hab·bā·’îm miṣ·ray·māh rə·’ū·ḇên ya·‘ă·qōḇ bə·ḵōr
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt — Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.
Where the English smooths the original
This document, consisting of Genesis 46:8-27 , is one that would be of the highest importance to the Israelites, when taking possession of Canaan, being as it were their title-deed to the land. Accordingly we find that it is drawn up in a legal manner, representing as sons some who were really grandsons, but who took as heads of families the place usually held by sons.Ellicott’s controlling image: the genealogy is a legal instrument — Israel’s “title-deed” to Canaan — which explains its formal, heir-listing logic.
Though the fulfilling of promises is always sure, yet it is often slow. It was now 215 years since God had promised Abraham to make of him a great nation, ch. 12:2; yet that branch of his seed, to which the promise was made sure, had only increased to seventy, of whom this particular account is kept, to show the power of God in making these seventy become a vast multitude.Henry reads the whole roster as a measuring-rod of patience: the promise of a nation, 215 years old, still numbers only seventy — the seed before the harvest.
"Jacob's first-born Reuben." This refers to the order of nature, without implying that the rights of first-birth were to be secured to Reuben 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 .Barnes catches the quiet reservation in the word “firstborn”: birth-order, not birthright — the privilege Reuben forfeited.
This genealogy is both here and elsewhere described exactly and particularly, as well to show the faithfulness of God in the performance of his promise concerning the vast multiplication of Abraham’s seed, and that in so short a time, as to distinguish the tribes; which was of great importance, and necessary for the disposal of the kingdom and priesthood, and above all, for the discovery of the true Messias.Poole names the three ends the list serves — covenant faithfulness, tribal order, and “above all… the discovery of the true Messias.”
9The sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê rə·’ū·ḇên ḥă·nō·wḵ ū·p̄al·lū wə·ḥeṣ·rō·wn wə·ḵar·mî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, and Pallu, and Hezron, and Carmi.
Where the English smooths the original
Reuben has four sons: Hanoch, Phallu, Hezron, Carmi. In these the genealogies all agree.Ellicott’s one-line verdict on textual stability: across Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Chronicles, Reuben’s four sons are transmitted without variation.
Hanoch ] See Genesis 25:4 , the name of a Midianite. Reuben took possession of Midianite land; see Joshua 13:21 . Hezron, and Carmi ] The name of Hezron (= “enclosure”) occurs again Genesis 46:12 .Cambridge traces the names outward — Hanoch echoing Midian, Hezron recurring within this very chapter — showing the genealogy woven into the wider geography of the tribes.
And the sons of Reuben, Hanoch, and Phallu, and Hezron, and Carmi. From whom came the families named after them, of which they were the heads, Numbers 26:5 .Gill reads each name forward to the clan it founds — the four sons become the four Reubenite “families” of Numbers 26.
And the sons of Reuben; Hanoch , - "Initiated or Dedicated;" the name also of Cain's firstborn ( Genesis 4:17 ), and of the son of Jared ( Genesis 5:19 ) - and Phallu , - "Distingushed" (Gesenius) - and Hezron , - "Enclosed" (Gesenius), "Of the Court or Village" (Murphy), "Blooming One" (Furst) - and Carmi , - "Vine-dresser" (Gesenius, Murphy), "Noble One" (Furst).The Pulpit Commentary unpacks the meaning buried in each transliterated name — dedication, distinction, enclosure, the vine.
10The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê šim·‘ō·wn yə·mū·’êl wə·yā·mîn wə·’ō·haḏ wə·yā·ḵîn wə·ṣō·ḥar wə·šā·’ūl ben- hak·kə·na·‘ă·nîṯ
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Simeon: Jemuel, and Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of the Canaanite woman.
Where the English smooths the original
Ohad is not mentioned in those parallel places, because he was then dead, and that without issue. The son of a Canaanitish woman; which is here mentioned as a brand upon him, and as an intimation that the rest of them, except Judah, married to persons of a better race.Poole reads the Canaanite-mother note as a deliberate “brand” — and infers from it the unstated rule the other brothers kept.
Jewish tradition represents Shaul as being really the son of Dinah by a Canaanite father, Shechem, but as adopted by Simeon to save his sister’s honour, yet with a note that he was of half Canaanitish blood.Reported as tradition, not fact: a rabbinic harmonization tying Shaul back to the Dinah narrative of Genesis 34.
the first of these is called Nemuel, Numbers 26:12 ; the third, Ohad, is omitted in the places referred to, he dying without children, as may be supposed, and so was not the head of any family; and the fourth, Jachin, is called Jarib, 1 Chronicles 4:24 ; and the fifth is called Zerah, in the above place, by a transposition of lettersGill maps the name-for-name correspondences with the later musters — including the “transposition of letters” that turns Zohar into Zerah.
the son of a Canaanitish woman ] A note recording the tradition of a well-known case, in which the tribe of Simeon had assimilated a Canaanite clan.Cambridge reads the clause sociologically: a memory of one Simeonite clan absorbing Canaanite blood, preserved in the family record.
11The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê lê·wî gê·rə·šō·wn qə·hāṯ ū·mə·rā·rî
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
Where the English smooths the original
And the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. From these sprung the priests and Levites, see Numbers 3:1 .Gill names the single most consequential branch of the whole roll: from these three, the priesthood and the Levitical service of Israel.
Gershon ] In 1 Chronicles 6:16 , Gershom . In Exodus 2:22 Gershom is the son of Moses. In Numbers 3:17 ; Numbers 3:38 , the family of Gershon, and the families of Kohath and Merari, were entrusted with the care of the sanctuary.Cambridge ties the three sons to their later sanctuary-charge in Numbers 3 — the genealogy is already the duty-roster of the tabernacle.
And the sons of Levi ; Gershon , - or Gershom, - "Expulsion" (Gesenins), - Kohath , or Kehath, - "Assembly" (Gesenius) - and Merari , - "Bitter,"The Pulpit Commentary supplies the lexical sense of each Levitical name — expulsion, assembly, bitterness.
Levi has three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.Ellicott’s spare summary; the brevity itself signals how settled this triad is across the genealogies.
12The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê yə·hū·ḏāh ‘êr wə·’ō·w·nān wə·šê·lāh wā·p̄e·reṣ wā·zā·raḥ ‘êr wə·’ō·w·nān way·yā·māṯ bə·’e·reṣ kə·na·‘an ḇə·nê- way·yih·yū p̄e·reṣ ḥeṣ·rō·wn wə·ḥā·mūl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Judah: Er, and Onan, and Shelah, and Perez, and Zerah — but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.
Where the English smooths the original
Hezron and Hamul, though they seem to have been born in Egypt, yet are here set down amongst those who came into Egypt, because they came thither in their father’s loins, as Levi is said to pay tithes in Abraham, Hebrews 7:9 . And the children may as well be said to come thither in their parents, as their father Jacob is said to return from thence, Genesis 46:4 , in his children.Poole’s key move: the “in the loins” logic — he cites Hebrews 7:9 (Levi tithing in Abraham) to license reckoning Egypt-born grandsons among those who “came into Egypt.”
but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan; and so did not go with Jacob into Egypt; and which is observed that they might not be reckoned among them, though it was proper to take notice of them in the genealogyGill explains the bookkeeping: the dead are named for the record but excluded from the count of those who went down.
Judan has five sons, of whom Er and Onan die prematurely. The names of the other three are Shelah. Pharez, and Zarah (spelt correctly Zerah in Numbers 26:20 ; 1Chronicles 2:4 ).Ellicott counts Judah’s five and notes the spelling normalization (Zarah/Zerah) across the parallel rolls. The OCR “Judan” for “Judah” is the source’s, left unrepaired.
We are here reminded that Er and Onon died in the land of Kenaan Genesis 46:12 , and of course did not come down into Egypt. The extraordinary circumstances of Judah's family are recorded in Genesis 38Barnes points the reader back to Genesis 38 for the “extraordinary circumstances” behind Judah’s line — the very chapter that produced Perez. (“Onon,” “Kenaan” are Biblehub’s OCR forms, left as found.)
13The sons of Issachar: Tola, Puvah, Job, and Shimron.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê yi·śā·š·ḵār tō·w·lā‘ ū·p̄uw·wāh wə·yō·wḇ wə·šim·rō·wn
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Issachar: Tola, and Puvah, and Job, and Shimron.
Where the English smooths the original
Tola ] The judge of this name in Jdg 10:1 is also “the son of Puah,” and of the tribe of Issachar, a resemblance which can hardly be accidental. Puvah … Iob ] In 1 Chronicles 7:1 , Puah, Jashub . See Numbers 26:23-24 . Observe that Iob (= Yôb ) is a different name from Job (= ’Iyyôb ) in Job 1:1 ff.Cambridge makes two careful philological points: the Tola/Puah names reappear in the judge of Judges 10:1, and the “Job” here is not the patriarch.
and Job , - perhaps an incorrect reading for Jashub ("Turning Oneself"), as in Numbers 26:24 ; 1 Chronicles 7:1 (Gesenius), which the LXX. adopts - and Shimron , - "Watch" (Gesenius).The Pulpit Commentary, following Gesenius and the LXX, treats “Job” as a variant of “Jashub” — a textual judgment, openly hedged with “perhaps.”
the second is called Puah, and the third Jashub, and the fourth Shimrom, 1 Chronicles 7:1 ; and were all the heads of families, as appears from the places referred to.Gill aligns the four names with their Chronicles forms and confirms each was a family-head — the genealogy’s purpose throughout.
Issachar has four sons: Numbers 26:23-24 . 1Chronicles 7:1 . Tola, Tola, Tola, Phuvah, Pua, Puah, Job, Jashiib, Jaehub, Shimron. Shimron. Shimrom.Ellicott’s synoptic column laid side by side — preserved with its OCR garbling (“Jashiib,” “Jaehub”) — shows the three rolls of Issachar’s sons in parallel.
14The sons of Zebulun: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel.
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Hebrew — tap a word ↓
ū·ḇə·nê zə·ḇū·lun se·reḏ wə·’ê·lō·wn wə·yaḥ·lə·’êl
Literal — word-for-word from the original
And the sons of Zebulun: Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel.
Where the English smooths the original
Zebulun has three sons: Numbers 26:26 . Sered, Sered, Elon, Elon, Jahleel. Jahleel. No genealogy of the tribe of Zebulun is given in the Book of Chronicles.Ellicott’s parallel column for Zebulun, with the telling note that Chronicles preserves no Zebulunite genealogy — making Genesis and Numbers the sole witnesses.
And the sons of Zebulun; Sered , - "Fear" (Gesenius) - and Elon , "Oak" - and Jahleel , - "Whom God has made sick" (Gesenius).The Pulpit Commentary reads the three names’ meanings — fear, oak, and the stark theophoric “whom God has made sick.”
As in Numbers 26:26 . Elon ] The judge of this name in Jdg 12:11 is also of the tribe of Zebulon.Cambridge confirms the exact agreement with Numbers 26:26 and notes the clan-name Elon reappearing in the later Zebulunite judge.
And the sons of Zebulun, Sered, and Elon, and Jahleel. Whose names are the same in Numbers 26:26 .Gill’s terse confirmation of verbatim agreement with the Numbers muster — the verbal parallel stated plainly.
15These are the sons of Leah born to Jacob in Paddan-aram, in addition to his daughter Dinah. The total number of sons and daughters was thirty-three.
Berean Standard Bible · CC0
Hebrew — tap a word ↓
’êl·leh bə·nê lê·’āh ’ă·šer yā·lə·ḏāh lə·ya·‘ă·qōḇ bə·p̄ad·dan ’ă·rām wə·’êṯ ḇit·tōw dî·nāh kāl- ne·p̄eš bā·nāw ū·ḇə·nō·w·ṯāw šə·lō·šîm wə·šā·lōš
Literal — word-for-word from the original
These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah — all the souls of his sons and his daughters: thirty and three.
Where the English smooths the original
All the souls . . . were thirty and three. —That is, six sons, twenty-three grandsons, two great grandsons, Dinah, and Jacob himself. The other daughters and granddaughters are omitted.Ellicott gives the cleanest arithmetic for 33 — six + twenty-three + two + Dinah + Jacob — and frankly notes the omission of the other women.
Which she bare unto Jacob in Padan-aram: this is true properly and immediately of the sons, who were indeed born there, but improperly and mediately of the grandchildren, which are as truly said to be born of Leah in Padan as to be born of her at all, because they were indeed born of them which were born of her, and that in Padan.Poole distinguishes “properly” from “mediately” — the grandchildren are “born of Leah” only through those she bore, the same logic that let Egypt-born sons be reckoned in the migration.
thirty and three ] The names of the male descendants in Genesis 46:9-14 give a total of thirty-three , in which apparently Er and Onan were, at first, reckoned, but not Dinah. The mention of “his daughters” is therefore superfluous, and possibly a gloss. Later, however, Er and Onan were excluded, and the names of Jacob himself and Dinah added, in order to make up the figure.Cambridge offers a competing reconstruction of the 33 — a critical, source-conscious reading openly at odds with the harmonizing tradition (Ellicott, Gill); the synthesis reports both without adjudicating.
Strictly speaking, there were only sixty-six went to Egypt; but to these add Joseph and his two sons, and Jacob the head of the clan, and the whole number amounts to seventy. In the speech of Stephen (Ac 7:14) the number is stated to be seventy-five; but as that estimate includes five sons of Ephraim and Manasseh (1Ch 7:14-20), born in Egypt, the two accounts coincide.JFB’s note covers the whole register (vv. 8–27), not v. 15 alone; quoted here because it gives the standard harmonization of the chapter’s great crux — the sixty-six who travelled, the seventy of the house, and Stephen’s Septuagint “seventy-five” (Acts 7:14), reconciled by the five Egypt-born descendants of Joseph.
it seems best therefore to take Jacob himself into the account, as several Jewish writers doGill lands, after weighing the alternatives, on including Jacob in the 33 — the reading that agrees with Ellicott and the older Jewish reckoning.
The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.
AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.
The register opens with wə’êlleh šəmōwṯ — “and these are the names” — the very words that will title the book of Exodus (1:1), so that this genealogy is the literary hinge between the Genesis of the family and the Exodus of the nation. Ellicott reads its genre precisely: it is “a document… of the highest importance to the Israelites, when taking possession of Canaan, being as it were their title-deed to the land,” and “drawn up in a legal manner, representing as sons some who were really grandsons, but who took as heads of families the place usually held by sons.” That single observation unlocks the whole chapter: it is not a birth-record but a legal roll of heirs. Poole confirms the purpose from the other side — the genealogy is given “to show the faithfulness of God in the performance of his promise… and above all, for the discovery of the true Messias.” The names matter because the inheritance and the Messiah both run through them.
Matthew Henry reads the roster as a ruler laid against the promise: “Though the fulfilling of promises is always sure, yet it is often slow. It was now 215 years since God had promised Abraham to make of him a great nation… yet that branch of his seed… had only increased to seventy.” The chapter is the seed-stage of Exodus 1:7’s explosion (“the children of Israel… multiplied, and grew exceeding mighty”). Keil & Delitzsch press the theological shape of the final number: the seventy is “the number 7… multiplied by the number 10, as the seal of completeness, so as to express the fact that these 70 souls comprehended the whole of the nation of God.” The Leah-line’s own subtotal — šəlōšîm wəšālōš, thirty-three (v. 15) — is the first course of that structure: Ellicott reckons it “six sons, twenty-three grandsons, two great grandsons, Dinah, and Jacob himself.”
The synthesis declines to pretend the count is simple, because the voices do not. Keil & Delitzsch walk through the chronological strain frankly: Perez “would only be about 11 years old” at the descent, “and at that age he could not have had two sons,” so “in the list before us grandsons and great-grandsons of Jacob are named who were born afterwards in Egypt… in lumbis patrum” — in the loins of their fathers. Poole gives the doctrinal warrant for that reading with a New-Testament hook: Hezron and Hamul “came thither in their father’s loins, as Levi is said to pay tithes in Abraham, Hebrews 7:9.” Against this harmonizing tradition, Cambridge reads the same data critically: the thirty-three “cannot be understood literally” and “illustrates the artificial lines upon which the genealogies were drawn up,” with Er and Onan “at first reckoned, but not Dinah,” then later swapped. Two honest readings of one hard number, set side by side and left unreconciled.
Into the smooth roll of names the text presses two jolts. First, “Shaul the son of the Canaanite woman” (v. 10). Poole hears it “as a brand upon him, and as an intimation that the rest of them, except Judah, married to persons of a better race”; Keil infers the rule from the exception — intermarriage with Canaan was “quite an exceptional thing.” (Ellicott reports, as tradition only, the rabbinic guess that Shaul was Dinah’s son.) Second, the one verb of action in the whole register: wayyāmāṯ, “and he died” — Er and Onan, struck down in Canaan (Genesis 38:7–10), named for the record but, as Gill notes, kept out of the count, “that they might not be reckoned among them.” The roll of life carries within it a notice of judgment.
Two of Leah’s sons carry Israel’s two great offices, and the chapter quietly seats them. From Levi’s three sons (v. 11) — Gershon, Kohath, Merari — Gill says “sprung the priests and Levites,” and through Kohath, Moses and Aaron themselves (Exodus 6:18–20). From Judah (v. 12) comes the kingship; and where his firstborn Er and Onan fall under death, the line does not fail but breaks through: Pereṣ — “a breach” — born in the breach of Genesis 38:29, “eminent,” Poole says, “for being the progenitor of the Messiah.” His son Hezron (v. 12), reckoned here though born in Egypt, stands four links from David (Ruth 4:18–22) and is named in the genealogy of Christ (Matthew 1:3). The unloved wife’s sons hold both the altar and the throne — and the cradle of the Messiah.
Read under the rule that Scripture is its own final authority — and offered as a reading to be tested, not a verdict to be trusted — this catalogue of hard-to-pronounce names preaches three things. God keeps a roll, and no name is wasted. The text that the modern eye skims is, in Ellicott’s phrase, a “title-deed”: every name is an heir, a memorial (šēm), a soul (nep̄eš) counted by God before any of them could count themselves. The promise advances by breach, not by ease. The firstborn Reuben is named but bypassed; Er and Onan are named but dead; yet through Tamar’s scandal and Judah’s shame comes Pereṣ, “breaking-forth,” the very breach through which David and the Messiah will come. Where the natural line dies, God opens a new one. The offices of Israel rest on grace, not merit. Priesthood (Levi) and kingship (Judah) both descend from Leah — the wife Jacob never chose, whose womb God opened because she was “hated” (Genesis 29:31). The genealogy is mercy disguised as bookkeeping: a slow, sure God turning seventy souls in Egypt into the nation that would carry, and finally bear, the Saviour of the world.
Heaven counts by souls, not by greatness: seventy names in a famine become the cradle of the world’s redemption.
AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.
Reuben’s four sons — Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, Carmi (v. 9) — recur word-for-word in the later inspired rolls. Ellicott: “in these the genealogies all agree.” Because the same rare proper names are reproduced (Pallu in 5 vv, Carmi in 8 vv, Hanoch in 15 vv), this is a genuine verbal re-citation across books — a later text quoting an earlier within the same language — not merely a shared motif; hence the verbal tier.
Genesis 46:9 · Exodus 6:14 · Numbers 26:5 · 1 Chronicles 5:3
basis: Verifier-computed shared rare lexemes (Hebrew↔Hebrew), Genesis 46:9 ↔ 1 Chronicles 5:3 / Exodus 6:14: H6396 Pallûwʼ (5 vv), H3756 Karmîy (8 vv), H2585 Chănôwk (15 vv), H2696 Chetsrôwn (17 vv). The rarity of the shared proper names warrants the verbal (re-citation) tier.
Gershon, Kohath, and Merari (v. 11) reappear identically in the priestly genealogy of Exodus 6:16 and the Levite musters of Numbers 3 and 1 Chronicles 6. From this triad descend the entire Levitical priesthood (Gill) and Moses and Aaron themselves (through Kohath). The verbal link rests on the verified rare names; this is one inspired roll re-citing another, not a thematic echo.
Genesis 46:11 · Exodus 6:16 · Numbers 3:17 · 1 Chronicles 6:16
basis: Verifier-computed shared lexemes (Hebrew↔Hebrew), Genesis 46:11 ↔ Exodus 6:16: H1648 Gêrᵉshôwn (18 vv), H6955 Qᵉhâth (29 vv), H4847 Mᵉrârîy (36 vv), H3878 Lêvîy (57 vv). Verbatim re-citation of the Levitical triad across books; verbal tier.
The clause “the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul” (v. 12) is the chapter’s chronological knot — grandsons (likely Egypt-born) counted among those who “came into Egypt.” The same pair is mustered as Judahite families in Numbers 26:21 and 1 Chronicles 2:5. Hamul is a very rare name (3 vv), so the parallel is a tight verbal re-citation. This is also the textual seam that carries the Davidic and Messianic line (Ruth 4:18–19; Matthew 1:3).
Genesis 46:12 · Numbers 26:21 · 1 Chronicles 2:5 · Ruth 4:18
basis: Verifier-computed shared rare lexemes (Hebrew↔Hebrew), Genesis 46:12 ↔ Numbers 26:21: H2538 Châmûwl (3 vv, very rare), H6557 Perets (13 vv), H2696 Chetsrôwn (17 vv). Verbal tier on the strength of the rare shared names.
Simeon’s six (v. 10) recur in Exodus 6:15 and Numbers 26:12, but with the well-known spelling shifts the voices catalogue — Jemuel/Nemuel, Zohar/Zerah, Jachin/Jarib (Barnes, Gill). The shared rare names (Jemuel in 2 vv, Ohad in 2 vv, Zohar in 4 vv) still establish a verbal re-citation; the synthesis flags the variants as real textual data, neither smoothed nor harmonized away.
Genesis 46:10 · Exodus 6:15 · Numbers 26:12 · 1 Chronicles 4:24
basis: Verifier-computed shared rare lexemes (Hebrew↔Hebrew), Genesis 46:10 ↔ Exodus 6:15: H3223 Yᵉmûwʼêl (2 vv), H161 ʼÔhad (2 vv), H6714 Tsôchar (4 vv), H3226 Yâmîyn (6 vv). Verbal re-citation despite the J/N and Zohar/Zerah orthographic variants.
Issachar’s first two sons (v. 13), Tola and Puah, reappear together generations later in the judge “Tola the son of Puah… a man of Issachar” (Judges 10:1) — a resemblance Cambridge calls “hardly accidental.” The Verifier returns a verbal score on the rare shared names (Puah in 4 vv, Tola in 5 vv), but the link is best read as clan-names re-surfacing in a clan-chief rather than one verse citing another; so it is held at structural/thematic, under-claiming the raw score.
Genesis 46:13 · Judges 10:1 · Numbers 26:23 · 1 Chronicles 7:1
basis: Verifier-computed shared rare lexemes (Hebrew↔Hebrew), Genesis 46:13 ↔ Judges 10:1: H6312 Pûwʼâh (4 vv), H8439 Tôwlâʻ (5 vv), H3485 Yissâˢkâr (40 vv). Deliberately downgraded from the raw verbal score: this is a clan-name recurring in a later Issachar leader (a shared pattern), not a quotation of Genesis.
The “soul”-count begun here (nep̄eš, v. 15) culminates in the “seventy souls” of v. 27, repeated at Exodus 1:5 and Deuteronomy 10:22. But Stephen, quoting the Septuagint, says “threescore and fifteen souls” — seventy-five (Acts 7:14). JFB and Keil both address it: the Greek total adds five later descendants of Joseph (per the LXX expansion of Genesis 46:20). The link is genuine but cross-Testament and cross-language (Hebrew → Greek), so it cannot rest on shared Strong’s numbers, and the very discrepancy is a long-disputed provenance question — flagged for the reader to verify.
Genesis 46:15 · Genesis 46:27 · Exodus 1:5 · Deuteronomy 10:22 · Acts 7:14
basis: Cross-Testament, cross-language (Hebrew “seventy souls” → Greek “seventy-five” in Acts 7:14, following the LXX of Genesis 46:20/Exodus 1:5). No shared Strong’s possible across languages, and the 70-vs-75 numeral is a contested transmission/provenance matter (discussed by JFB and Keil & Delitzsch). Flagged accordingly rather than asserted as a clean verbal parallel.
To reckon Egypt-born Hezron and Hamul (v. 12) among those who “came into Egypt,” Poole invokes Hebrews 7:9–10: “Levi… payed tithes in Abraham, for he was yet in the loins of his father.” The genealogy’s reckoning-of-descendants-in-the-ancestor is the same federal logic the writer to the Hebrews uses of Levi and Melchizedek. The connection is interpretive and cross-Testament (Hebrew narrative → Greek epistle), drawn explicitly by Poole on this verse; it rests on no shared lexeme and is tiered structural/thematic, not verbal.
Genesis 46:12 · Hebrews 7:9
basis: Cross-Testament and cross-language (Hebrew Genesis → Greek Hebrews): no shared Strong’s possible, so not verbal. The conceptual link (descendants reckoned “in the loins” of an ancestor) is named explicitly by Matthew Poole on Genesis 46:12, citing Hebrews 7:9; held as a structural/federal-reckoning parallel.
AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.
Where Judah’s firstborn die under judgment (v. 12), the line is carried by Pereṣ, “a breach” (Genesis 38:29) — whom Poole calls “the progenitor of the Messiah.” Through Perez and his son Hezron (named here, v. 12) runs the genealogy of David (Ruth 4:18–22) and of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:3, where “Judah the father of Perez and Zerah… Perez the father of Hezron” opens the royal line). The roll of Leah’s sons is, at this point, the literal pedigree of the incarnate Lord — a connection the church has read here from antiquity.
Genesis 46:12 · Ruth 4:18 · Matthew 1:3
From Leah descend both the priesthood (Levi, v. 11 — Gill: “from these sprung the priests and Levites”) and the kingship (Judah, v. 12). In Christ the two offices, here kept distinct in two sons, are at last joined: He is the King from Judah (Hebrews 7:14) who is also a priest forever — though, as that same chapter argues, “not after the order of Aaron” but of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:11–17). Poole’s note on v. 12 reaches into this very chapter of Hebrews (citing 7:9, Levi tithing in Abraham), so the synthesis follows his lead in reading the two Leah-offices toward Hebrews’ doctrine of the one Priest-King — though the Melchizedek extension is the church’s figural reading, not Poole’s explicit claim. The genealogy seats the offices that Christ alone will unite. The reading is figural and cross-Testament, widely held in tradition rather than stated as a citation of Genesis 46.
Genesis 46:11 · Genesis 46:12 · Hebrews 7:14
Henry frames the whole chapter as promise-in-seed: seventy souls go down, and from them God makes “a vast multitude.” That descent into Egypt and the exodus it sets up become, in the Gospel, a pattern of Christ Himself: “Out of Egypt I called my Son” (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15). The seventy who entered in Genesis 46 are the nation whose history Jesus recapitulates — carried down to Egypt as a child, called up again — so that the migration counted soul-by-soul here is the opening of the road the Messiah Himself will walk. A typological reading across the Testaments, widely attested though interpretive.
Genesis 46:8 · Genesis 46:15 · Hosea 11:1 · Matthew 2:15
The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.
Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:
This unit is the first panel of the descent-register of Genesis 46 — “the children of Leah” (vv. 8–15) — so the synthesis necessarily reads each verse against its parallel rolls (Exodus 6, Numbers 26, 1 Chronicles 2–7) and against the chapter’s closing total of “seventy souls” (v. 27). Where a voice (notably Keil & Delitzsch, whose note covers the whole list vv. 8–27) comments on the entire register, that scope is noted in place.
Every named voice is a public-domain commentary quoted verbatim from Biblehub’s collation; each excerpt above is a contiguous substring of its source, trimmed only at the ends. The verse-card voices span nine commentators across the unit — Ellicott, Matthew Henry, Barnes, Poole, Gill, Cambridge, the Pulpit Commentary, and Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (whose vv. 8–27 note on the “seventy souls” crux is quoted on v. 15), with Keil & Delitzsch heard in the threads and movements — so that the legal, devotional, philological, harmonizing, and source-critical registers are all heard rather than leaning on one school. We have preserved Biblehub’s OCR artifacts where they fall inside a quoted excerpt (e.g. Ellicott’s “Judan” for “Judah” and his garbled synoptic column “Jashiib, Jaehub” on v. 13; Barnes’ “Onon” and “Kenaan” on v. 12) and have not silently repaired them — honesty about provenance over tidiness.
Cross-reference tiers follow the Verifier’s computed shared-lexeme bases (run pairwise for this unit). A caution worth stating plainly: the Verifier returns “verbal / quotation” for nearly every Genesis 46 ↔ Numbers 26 / Exodus 6 / 1 Chronicles pair, because these are the same genealogy re-cited in later inspired books and so reproduce the same rare proper names. That score is real, and for the genuine book-to-book re-citations (Reuben, Levi, Simeon, Perez’s sons) we have kept the verbal tier. But two links are deliberately under-claimed: (1) the Tola/Puah → Judges 10:1 tie, where the raw score is verbal but the relation is a clan-name recurring in a later leader, not a quotation, so we downgrade to structural; and (2) the “in the loins” / Hebrews 7:9 link, which is cross-Testament, cross-language, and rests on Poole’s explicit reasoning rather than any shared Strong’s number, so it is tiered structural. The “seventy souls” / Acts 7:14 connection is flagged — verify source: it is the long-debated 70-vs-75 numeral, a cross-language matter (Hebrew MT vs. the LXX that Stephen follows) discussed openly by JFB and Keil & Delitzsch; it cannot be a clean verbal parallel and its provenance is genuinely contested. All Christ-section links are cross-Testament typology, openly labeled as interpretation and held as widely-attested rather than novel. This unit does not contain Joshua 1:5, so no Joshua→Hebrews 13:5 flag applies.
✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)