According to the Torah, Kehath (, Qəhāṯ) or Kohath was the second of the sons of Levi[Jubilees 34:20][ Testament of Levi 11]
Onomastics
According to biblical scholars, the meaning of Kehath's name is unknown, though it may derive from an
Aramaic word meaning
obey.
[Cheyne and Black, Encyclopaedia Biblica]
In the Testament of Levi, Kehath's birth when his father Levi was 35 years old was accompanied by a vision of Kehath "on high in the midst of all the congregation";[Testament of Levi, 3:52 in Rutherford H. Platt Jr. edition (1926) [1]] in the vision, Kehath's name is given as meaning "the beginning of majesty and instruction" and prophesies his being raised above his siblings.[ Testament of Levi. The quote "beginning of majesty and instruction" is from chapter 3, verse 53 according to the numbering in Rutherford Platt's translation (1926) [2]. It is numbered as XI, 7 (page 50) in the edition by R. H. Charles (1908) [3]]
Genealogy
In the
Book of Exodus, Kehath has four sons,
Amram,
Izhar, Hebron and
Uzziel. Amram marries
Jochebed and sires
Moses,
Aaron, and
Miriam.
Although some Greek and Latin manuscripts of the
Septuagint version of the Torah state that Jochebed was Kehath's cousin,
[Exodus 6:16-20, LXX] the Hebrew Masoretic Text states that she was his sister
[ New American Bible, footnote to Exodus 6:20]—that is, Amram's aunt—and Jochebed's relationship to Levi is otherwise described unambiguously as his daughter in the
Book of Numbers 26:59. According to
Numbers, Kehath gained 8,600 descendants during the lifetime of his grandson. However these names were prominent clans, and not always direct linear descendants as expected in western genealogies.
Theories
Julius Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis asserts that the
Torah was compiled in the fifth century BC from several independent, contradictory, hypothetical (nonextant) documents, including the
Jahwist,
Elohist,
Deuteronomic, and
and the Book of Generations. Advocates of this hypothesis, such as Richard Elliott Friedman, attribute Levi's biblical genealogy to the "Book of Generations".
[Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote The Bible?.] Others attribute Moses's birth narrative, which also mentions Amram and Jochebed, to the earlier "Elohist source". According to this theory, the Levite genealogy is a myth to explain away the fact that four different groups claimed descent from Levi—the
Gershonites,
Kehathites,
Merarites, and
Aaronides. Since Aaron could not have been a brother to Gershon, Kehath, and Merari, since he was the son of one of Kehath's sons, he had to belong to a following generation. The hypothetical reconstruction of the "Elohist source" mentions only that both parents were Levites without identifying their names (). Some scholars suspect that the "Elohist source" attributes to Moses both matrilineal and patrilineal descent from Levites in order to enhance his religious credentials.
Family tree
According to the Book of Genesis and the Book of Exodus Kohath's family tree looks like this:
See also
Notes and citations
