Were Joshua, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah Contemporaries? A ...

700 Journal of Biblical Literature 127, no. 4 (2008)
Jeconiah (Jehoiachin)——— Shealtiel
Malchiram
Pedaiah———Zerubbabel
Shenazzar
Jekamiah
Hoshama
Nedabiah
According to 2 Kgs 24:8, Jehoiachin was born in 615, since he came to the
throne when he was eighteen in 597, and it is known that he was still alive, at fiftyfour,
in 561 (2 Kgs 25:27). Assuming that Jehoiachin had his first child at eighteen
or twenty, Pedaiah, his third son, would have been born in the mid to late 590s, 8
which seems plausible, since Babylonian records indicate that Jehoiachin had five
sons who were given provisions in captivity by 592. If Zerubbabel was born in ca.
573, he would have been fifty-three when he is mentioned by Haggai, Ezra, and
Nehemiah during the reign of Darius I, ca. 520. By the time of Artaxerxes he would
have been 108 and presumably long since dead.
The study of the genealogy of Zerubbabel has long been plagued by notices in
Ezra (3:2), Nehemiah (12:1), and Haggai (1:1) that Zerubbabel’s father was Shealtiel,
the oldest son of Jeconiah, and not Pedaiah. Numerous attempts have been made
to explain this discrepancy, often by the hypothesis that Shealtiel died before siring
a son, and that his younger brother Pedaiah married his widow and engendered a
son in Shealtiel’s name. After discussing this hypothesis and several other solutions
and finding them unsatisfactory, Edelman calls attention to an unusual wording in
the list of the sons of Jeconiah in 1 Chr 3:17–18: 9 “and the sons of Jeconiah, the
captive: Shealtiel his son, and Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama,
and Nedabiah.” This could be taken to mean that Shealtiel was the only descendant
of Jeconiah mentioned, and his name is then followed by the list of six additional
names. This list could be taken to mean that these six additional males were all sons
of Shealtiel instead of Jeconiah, but the genealogy continues with the lineage of
Pedaiah, who would be Shealtiel’s second oldest son. Edelman (p. 21) thinks that the
link should continue from the oldest son. 10 She therefore emends the genealogy to
read as follows (with additions indicated in brackets): “the descendants of Yekoniah
the captive: Shealtiel, his son, Malkiram [his son], and [the sons of Malkiram]:
Pedaiah, Shenazzer, Yekamiah, Hoshama, Nedeviah [five]” (p. 21).
8 Edelman (Origins, 21) sets Shealtiel’s birth at 597. There is no indication of how many
wives were involved in bearing Jehoiachin’s children.
9 For discussion of other details of this genealogy, see Gary N. Knoppers, 1 Chronicles 1–9:
A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 12; New York: Doubleday, 2004), 320–
21, 327–28; and Ralph W. Klein, 1 Chronicles: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress,
2006), 109–10, 119–20. Both commentaries retain Zerubbabel as the grandson of Jeconiah.
10 It should be noted, however, that in the two generations after Zerubbabel descendants
do not come from the oldest son.
This article was published in JBL 127/4 (2008) 697–701, copyright © 2008 by the Society of Biblical Literature. To purchase
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