Ruth 4 - Biblical Genealogies
Was Rahab the Mother of Boaz?

Throughout history, genealogies in the Bible have been the source of many interpretation errors.  Some scholars have even attempted to precisely date the creation on the basis of these lists.  While we can approximate certain events, due to the nature and purposes of Biblical genealogies that we'll examine in this article, we generally must look outside these lists for certain historical data.

 

In the closing section of the book of Ruth (4:13-22), we find a genealogy which links Boaz and Ruth to their ancestor Perez, the son of Judah, who was the son of Jacob (Israel).  The genealogy also looks forward to their descendent, King David.  In the list, it is stated that Salmon was the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David (Ruth 4:21-22).  We know that Salmon was the husband of the prostitute Rahab (Jsh 2, 6:17) from a similar genealogy in Matthew 1:5.  So, a cursory reading in the English would appear to indicate that Boaz was the “son” of Salmon and Rahab.  Indeed, we’ve seen this noted in many commentaries, but this cannot be so.  Rahab and Salmon lived during the days of Joshua (~1400 BC) while Boaz lived about 300 years later.

Most of us have seen many books and articles on the many (supposed) errors in the Bible.  Of these imaginary errors, most can be attributed to the reader misinterpreting the author’s intent by isolating a verse from the scriptural or historical context, misapplying the rules of genre, ignoring the nuances of the original language, or committing another common oversight.  There are some Bible passages that are very difficult to comprehend, however a misinterpretation or lack of understanding by the reader does not constitute an error in Scripture.  See our Bible Apologetics section for more information on Biblical inerrancy.

To resolve the apparent genealogy timeline dilemma in Ruth, we must observe both the original Biblical language and the purpose of genealogies within Scripture.

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Examining the original OT Hebrew language, we find that the word for “father” (ab)  or “mother” (em) can also mean “ancestor”  (the Hebrew language has no individual word for "grandfather" or "grandmother").  Likewise, the word for “son” (ben) can also mean “grandson” or “descendent”.  Finally, we note that the verb “beget”, “father” or “sire” (yalad) can also mean “to become the ancestor of”.

The Bible translators often used the words “father” or “son” because the English word “ancestor” does not carry the intimacy or the close relationship implied in the original Hebrew or Greek languages.  In Hebrew culture, ancestors were regularly referred to as fathers, and descendents as sons.  Even today, Christians are often called “sons” of Abraham.

Regarding the NT genealogy in Matthew 1:5, we read “Salmon was the father of Boaz” or “Salmon fathered Boaz” or “Salmon begat Boaz”.  In the Greek language, the verb translated “was the father”, “fathered” or “begat” is egennēsen, from genna (descent, birth).  Incidentally, the Greek word translated “son” in Mt 1:1 is uiou, which is used widely in the NT to mean immediate, remote or figurative kinship.  Common translations are child, son or even foal.  So, we see that, like the Hebrew, we also have multiple meanings for these terms in the Greek language.

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Genealogies in the Bible are seldom intended to record the exact sequential descent of each member within a family line.  In fact, it is quite common to skip several generations of the family tree depending on the primary function of a particular list.

Sometimes, names are omitted from a list (known as telescoping) in order to achieve a certain purpose, such as to relate an individual to a prominent ancestor (such as a king or the patriarch of a tribe or clan), or to achieve a certain function such as to limit the list to a particular number of names, usually a multiple of seven or ten.  For example, Matthew’s messianic genealogy from Abraham to Jesus (Mt 1:3-21) contains three sets of fourteen (2x7) generations while Luke’s (3:23-38) contains twenty one (3x7) from Adam to Jesus, so Luke covers a much longer period with only half the names.  Even with Matthew’s longer list, we can see that he left off three consecutive kings of Judah by comparing his list with the lineage of David in 1Chronicles chapter 3.  In addition to the messianic purpose, genealogies may also be included for political (the succession of kings in the line of David), religious (priesthood line of Aaron), or tribal reasons.

Considering the tribal records, no other society has placed more significance on pedigree than the Hebrews.  Not only was the division and settlement of the land based upon tribal considerations, but there was the expectation of the Messiah from the tribe of Judah, and the special role in worship for the tribe of Levi.  Due to the importance placed on family succession, we see frequent changes within the family lines.  The levirate marriage law (Dt 5:5-10) required an eligible brother-in-law of a sonless widow to marry her in order to provide an heir.  In other cases, the head of a family or house with no male heirs might “adopt” another relative or a favored employee (or servant).  These shifting relations, not the mention the fact that adoptions sometimes even occurred across tribal boundaries, would often produce differing results from a census or record taken at an earlier or later date.

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Returning to the Ruth genealogy, we have a period of about 400 years from the time of Rahab (~1400BC) to David (~1000BC), yet only four generations are listed from Salmon/Rahab to David (Ruth 4:21-22).  We find further evidence for missing generations by comparing this list with the genealogy of the Levite priests in 1Chronicles 6:4-8, in which we find nine generations listed from Eleazar, the priest during Rahab’s time to Zadoc, the priest during David’s reign.  In addition, other parts of the Chronicles indicate that there were additional generations of priests that were omitted.  Thus, we can estimate that at least six generations were likely excluded from the Ruth genealogy.

Our conclusion then begs the question, where is the gap (missing generations) or gaps in the Ruth genealogy?  Some have erroneously proposed that there must be at least eleven generations between the Moabite Ruth and David due to the prohibition in Dt 23:3 against Moabites entering the assembly of the Lord to the tenth generation.  This position is based upon a faulty understanding of Ruth’s status and the meaning of the verse.  We’ll address this issue in detail in our “Israel-Moab Intermarriage” article (currently in progress).

In determining the gap(s), we should first ask, “How do we determine immediate father/son pairs versus ancestor/descendent relationships?”  We’ve seen from the nature and purpose of Biblical genealogies that, in almost every situation, we’ll need to look outside the genealogy for our evidence.  A rare exception is when a child is “named”, such as Adam naming Seth and Lamech naming Noah in the Genesis 5 genealogy.  Beyond this, we’ll need to look outside the lists for interactions between the pair, associations with mutual events, people or known time periods, or for other indications within the narratives.

From the time of David forward, we have reliable extra-biblical records from which we can establish dates for most Biblical events and characters, but prior to David, we must use other techniques.  In general, if we read that “Y” is the son of “X” outside of a genealogy, there is a higher probability that “Y” is an actual son rather than a descendent of “X” as compared to finding the same statement within a genealogy.  This is not to say that genealogical lists do not contain direct chronological father/son pairs, just that we should not automatically assume that there are no missing generations between the two, and we should be cautious in dating people or events based upon these lists.  We can also note that, even outside a list, it is not unusual to refer to a distant descendent as the son of a famous forefather (such as Abraham, Jacob, David etc), but quite rare to do so of a lesser know ancestor, so the less famous the father, the more likely that we’re dealing with a direct father/son relationship.

In the Ruth genealogy, we establish Boaz and Obed as father and son on multiple grounds such as naming him Obed, Naomi holding him in her lap (interaction), and the general nature of the account (Ru 4:13-17).  We similarly establish Jesse as the immediate father of David from the narrative of Samuel’s visit in 1Sam 1-13 (present tense interaction between Samuel, Jesse, David and his brothers).  So, in the Salmon (husband of Rahab), Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David list, we’ve narrowed the location of the gap to between Rahab and Boaz and/or Obed and Jesse.

We further investigate and note that there are four references in Scripture to Boaz as the “son” of Salmon/Rahab, all in genealogies (Ru 4, 1Chr 2, Mt 1, and Lk 3 as Sala).  We also find Jesse as the “son” of Obed in the same four list, but in addition, we also have a narrative “And they named him Obed.  He was the father of Jesse, the father of David” (Ru 4:17).  This narrative, along with contextual and historical interpretations that Boaz married Ruth about 1100BC, leads us to conclude that Obed is most likely the natural father of Jesse.  Likewise, we can reasonably assume that Salmon and Rahab are ancestors rather than parents of Boaz, probably separated by 250-300 years and 6-12 generations.  

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