Read the passage and its setting
1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41
Jerahmeel's line continues through a daughter and an Egyptian servant
The Main Point
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
What Is Happening Here?
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
Caleb's wives and children, Hur and Bezalel, Hezron's late marriage, Jair's towns, and Abiah's posthumous child are woven together.
Calebite branches are associated with Hebron, Beth-zur, concubines, Achsah, Bethlehem, villages, and Kenite scribal families at Jabez.
Follow Memory, David, Worship, and Preparation
See why this section appears here and how the author's movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
The long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
Follow the Movement
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
The long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Textual movement
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
Placement in 1 Chronicles
The long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
And the sons of Jerahmeel the firstborn of Hezron were, Ram the firstborn, and…
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Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading 1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41 within Chronicles' complete movement rules out these uses:
Jarha's service status does not justify slavery, forced marriage, racial hierarchy, or treating the unnamed daughter as property without agency.
Context check: Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations. Its position means the long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
What Remains True Today
Communal memory must preserve real people, households, disruptions, and belonging without turning ancestry into superiority, spiritual rank, or entitlement.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations. Its position means the long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
Communal memory must preserve real people, households, disruptions, and belonging without turning ancestry into superiority, spiritual rank, or entitlement.
How should this shape us today?
When a community tells its story, document people accurately, notice women and outsiders as persons, state gaps honestly, and reject ancestry tests for dignity, faith, citizenship, land, or leadership.
A Concrete Example
In a present community decision related to memory, belonging, leadership, worship, resources, conflict, or succession, begin with this unit's actual role, state uncertainty, identify affected people, and choose transparent noncoercive action.
Teach It Back
Explain 1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41 in your own words. Include its movement, placement in Chronicles, one Samuel-Kings comparison, one material uncertainty, one affected person or group, and one modern use the complete context rules out.
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Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Textual movement
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
Placement in 1 Chronicles
The long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
No individual Hebrew or KJV term needs a separate lexical note beyond the unit's full contextual explanation.
What the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Monarchic narrative and postexilic historiography
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations. The received unit belongs to ancient theological historiography shaped through remembered sources for a postexilic horizon; event, list, institution, number, and chronology claims remain no stronger than the cited evidence.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
No KJV expression in this unit needs a separate translation clarification; material textual differences remain in the variant section.
Earlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Chronicles within Israel's Scriptures
Genesis through Kings supplies source and comparison material for the genealogical prologue. Read names, households, places, women, foreigners, disruptions, and exclusions as shaped literary history, not a modern biological registry.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Compare without forced harmonization
Read 1 Chronicles as received Jewish Scripture first, then compare Hebrew, Greek, Samuel-Kings, Torah, Psalms, and postexilic writings without forced harmonization or making ancient Israel a modern political brand.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
Samuel-Kings differences and reconstruction limits
The list states the marriage and descent but not the woman's name, consent, Jarha's route into service, or the household's social conditions; these gaps must remain gaps.
How certain? probableWhere careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: The list states the marriage and descent but not the woman's name, consent, Jarha's route into service, or the household's social conditions; these gaps must remain gaps.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
The Chronicler presents God's presence, judgment, mercy, promise, or ordering work through this exact movement: Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Across 1 Chronicles this movement contributes to the path from humanity and Israel's genealogical memory through David's accession, ark, promise, wars, temple preparation, ordered service, offering, and succession: Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
Jarha's service status does not justify slavery, forced marriage, racial hierarchy, or treating the unnamed daughter as property without agency.
A name, lineage, tribe, king, temple office, victory, judgment, offering, or succession line can be detached from the Chronicler's postexilic horizon, literary shaping, affected people, and the rest of the book.
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations. Its position means the long sub-line makes marriage across status and origin integral to Judah's remembered ancestry.
Communal memory must preserve real people, households, disruptions, and belonging without turning ancestry into superiority, spiritual rank, or entitlement.
Jerahmeel's households include childless deaths and Sheshan's daughter marrying Jarha, an Egyptian servant, whose descendants continue for generations.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 2:25–2:41
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
STEP Bible NET2full, 1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Supports: Complete article on the reuse of Genesis genealogies to negotiate a broad all-Israel identity after exile, used as a contextual proposal rather than an ethnic prescription.
Jonker, Old Testament Essays 25.2 (2012), pp. 316–333, especially pp. 316–323 and 328–331
Supports: Complete article tracing named and unnamed women, kinship functions, initiative, vulnerability, and postexilic significance in Chronicles' genealogies.
Olojede, Acta Theologica 33.1 (2013), pp. 158–174, especially pp. 161–173
Supports: Masoretic, Greek, Syriac, Latin, and reception evidence for Sheerah, construction language, and the limits of recovering the woman's precise historical role.
Snoek, Vetus Testamentum advance article (2026), 24 pages, complete published version on 1 Chronicles 7:24
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.
Exact location: 1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Chronicles
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 2:25–2:41
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Full Notes: 1 Chronicles
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation
Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.
Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 1 Chronicles 2:25–2:41, verse-attached translation and translator notes
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
Reading the Pentateuch's Genealogies after the Exile: The Chronicler's Usage of Genesis 1-11 in Negotiating an All-Israelite Identity
Louis C. Jonker
Old Testament Essays 25(2), pp. 316-333, 2012
Supports: Complete article on the reuse of Genesis genealogies to negotiate a broad all-Israel identity after exile, used as a contextual proposal rather than an ethnic prescription.
Exact location: Jonker, Old Testament Essays 25.2 (2012), pp. 316–333, especially pp. 316–323 and 328–331
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
Chronicler's Women: A Holistic Appraisal
Funlola Olojede
Acta Theologica 33(1), pp. 158-174, 2013
Supports: Complete article tracing named and unnamed women, kinship functions, initiative, vulnerability, and postexilic significance in Chronicles' genealogies.
Exact location: Olojede, Acta Theologica 33.1 (2013), pp. 158–174, especially pp. 161–173
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
Did an Ephraimite Woman Build Cities? The Early and Recent Reception of 1 Chronicles 7:24
Doren G. Snoek
Vetus Testamentum, Advance Articles, 24 pages, 2026
Supports: Masoretic, Greek, Syriac, Latin, and reception evidence for Sheerah, construction language, and the limits of recovering the woman's precise historical role.
Exact location: Snoek, Vetus Testamentum advance article (2026), 24 pages, complete published version on 1 Chronicles 7:24
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility: Chronicles in Its Ancient Context
Isaac Kalimi
Poznan Theological Studies repository edition, pp. 7-25, 2019 repository edition
Supports: Case-sensitive distinction between events and literary presentation in ancient historiography, including credibility limits and rhetorical shaping.
Exact location: Kalimi, 'History, Historiography, Historical Evaluation and Credibility,' repository PDF pp. 7–25
Open source ↗