The family tree Moses was born into, from Levi to Phinehas

Exodus 6 gives the line in the middle of the story of the plagues. The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath and Merari, and the sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel.³ “Amram took him Jochebed his father’s sister to wife; and she bare him Aaron and Moses.”³

Numbers 26:59 adds that Jochebed was “the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt,” and that she bore Miriam as well.¹⁰ The family tree Moses was born into is therefore a close one. His mother was his grandfather’s sister, and Levi was both his great-grandfather and his grandfather.^3,10 Leviticus 18:12 later forbids a marriage to “thy father’s sister,” a law given after this marriage was made.⁶

Levi was the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the Joseph family tree draws him among his eleven brothers.

Exodus 2 tells the birth without a name. “A man of the house of Levi” married “a daughter of Levi,” and she hid her son for three months and then laid him in an ark of bulrushes.¹ His sister “stood afar off,” and offered to find a Hebrew nurse, and “the maid went and called the child’s mother.”¹ Only Exodus 6 and Numbers 26 give the names of the parents.^3,10

The child grew, and his mother brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, “and he became her son,” and she named him Moses.¹ The family tree Moses belonged to thus had two mothers in it, and the chart draws the princess with the dotted line of adoption.

His elder brother was Aaron, and his sister was Miriam the prophetess, who took a timbrel and led the women in song after the crossing of the sea.⁴ Numbers 26:59 names all three together, “Aaron and Moses, and Miriam their sister.”¹⁰ Exodus 2 does not say whether the watching sister was Miriam, and the chart draws one sister only.¹

In Midian Moses helped the seven daughters of the priest at a well, and the priest “gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.”¹ Their first son was Gershom, “for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.”¹ Exodus 18 names the second, Eliezer, and tells how Jethro brought Zipporah and both sons to Moses in the wilderness after Moses had sent her back.⁵

The father-in-law has three names. He is Reuel in Exodus 2:18 and Jethro in Exodus 3:1 and 18:1.^1,2,5 Numbers 10:29 speaks of “Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite, Moses’ father in law,” and Judges 4:11 calls Hobab himself “the father in law of Moses.”^8,11 The chart draws one man with the names Reuel and Raguel beside Jethro, and leaves Hobab in the notes.

Numbers 12:1 adds that Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses “because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married.”⁹ The verse does not say whether she was Zipporah or a second wife, and the chart draws Zipporah alone.

Aaron married Elisheba, the daughter of Amminadab and sister of Naashon, and had four sons, the priests “which were anointed.”^3,7 Nadab and Abihu “died before the Lord, when they offered strange fire,” and had no children, so Eleazar and Ithamar carried on the priesthood.⁷ Eleazar’s son was Phinehas.³ Elisheba’s brother is the Nahshon of the Ruth family tree, so the priests descend from Judah on their mother’s side.

Judges 18:30 names a priest of the tribe of Dan as “Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh.”¹² Since 1 Chronicles 23:15 makes Gershom a son of Moses, the Talmud asks whether Jonathan was not the son of Moses, and answers that the verse linked him to Manasseh because he acted like that idolatrous king.^13,14 The chart does not draw Jonathan, since the reading is disputed.

The marriage of Amram and Jochebed is the other question readers raise. Exodus 6:20 states it plainly, and Numbers 26:59 confirms that Jochebed was Levi’s daughter, so the chart draws Amram’s wife as his aunt.^3,10 For the generations before Levi, see the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob family tree and the Genesis family tree.