In the books of Joshua and Judges there is direct confirmation that Moses' family survived the death of the prophet and went to Palestine. The book of Judges also provides ample evidence that this family was in charge of the sanctuary of Shiloh. In the subsequent books there is explicit and incontrovertible proof to support this.

There is a way, in fact, to know with certainty who inherited Shiloh. Positions in Israel, like the possession of goods and cities, were always inherited. So it should be enough to check who the ancestors of the man in charge of the sanctuary of Shiloh were at the time of Samuel to discover who received it on the division of the territory.

In the books of Samuel, which in the Bible immediately follow the book of Judges, all figures are identified by their lineage, which as a rule, for the most important ones, goes back to Jacob. The first book opens with Samuel's complete lineage up to Ephraim, son of Joseph. All the more reason, therefore, to expect that the ancestors of the great priest Eli, the man in charge of the Temple of Shiloh, the most important figure in Israel at that time, should be mentioned.

But surprisingly Eli's ancestors are mentioned nowhere. Nor is the name of his father. The usual censor at work? Perhaps, but there is a passage, 1 Sam 2:27, in which the author lets slip some information about a great ancestor of Eli, without, obviously, explicitly mentioning his name: “And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel?”

On the basis of the first few words, it would seem impossible to doubt that Eli's “great ancestor” was no other than Moses himself: It was to him and him only that God appeared in Egypt; he was always the only direct interlocutor with God. And it was Moses who consecrated the tabernacle and offered the first sacrifices; it was he who anointed Aaron and his sons (Ex 29). The fact that he was chosen from among all the tribes of Israel and wore the ephod, however, seems to refer to Aaron. There is no doubt, anyway, on the basis of this passage, that Eli descended from one or other of the two absolute protagonists of the Exodus: Moses or Aaron.

All the exegetic commentaries, obviously, agree that it is Aaron; just as our censor wanted. But this has little sense and is not confirmed by the text. The book of Joshua gives a precise list of all the cities allocated to Aaron's family, and Shiloh is not among them. Whereas Gershom, Moses' son, and his son Jonathan, are associated with Shiloh. If one has to choose between the two, it seems practically obligatory to think that Eli's great ancestor, to whom the author of the book of Samuel refers, was Moses himself. If Moses' family really survived, then there can be no reasonable doubt that it must have possessed the sanctuary of Shiloh and obviously the position of high priest connected to it.

It is necessary, therefore, to find other certain proof that that family went to Palestine and had descendants. The mention in Judges 18:30, is insufficient, on its own, to confirm this definitely, while the mention of Eli's great ancestor in 1 Sam 2:7 is ambiguous and lends itself to two different interpretations. As clues they are quite solid, but to dissipate any doubt it is necessary to find a true list of Moses' descendants and precise indications as to what roles were assigned to them.

Genealogical lists of Moses’ family in Chronicles

In the books of Samuel one can follow the vicissitudes of Eli's family, the one and only priestly family in Israel [1], from the destruction of the Temple of Shiloh to the end of David's reign, when Jerusalem became the capital of the joint kingdoms of Israel and Judah. We are not told explicitly, however, the name of that family's “great ancestor”.

The following two books, 1 Kings and 2 Kings, allow us to reconstruct the vicissitudes of the priestly family throughout the following four centuries, without interruption. From them we learn with certainty that the last high priest of the kingdom of Judah, Giosedec, deported by Nabuccodonosor to Babylon when still a child, descends in a direct line from Zadok, Eli's grand-nephew. These books, moreover, show with virtual certainty that the priestly family and Aaron's family descended from two different progenitors, because they are always unequivocally distinguished from one another. While Aaron is explicitly indicated as progenitor of the family that bears his name, however, it is never said from whom the family of the priests descended, i.e. who Eli's great ancestor was.

To find information relating to the ancestors of Eli and of Moses' family it is necessary to get as far as the two books of Chronicles, which contain a pot-pourri of information, assembled by the deportees from Babylon on their return to Jerusalem. Here, at last, we begin to find the evidence we have been looking for. In 1 Chronicles 23:14 it says that “Now concerning Moses the man of God, his sons were named of the tribe of Levi. The sons of Moses were, Gershom, and Eliezer. Of the sons of Gershom, Shebuel was the chief. And the sons of Eliezer were, Rehabiah the chief. And Eliezer had none other sons; but the sons of Rehabiah were very many”.

Regarding Gershom, only his first-born son, Shebuel, is mentioned, but we know from Judges 18:31 that he had at least one other son, Jonathan. Regarding Eliezer, his first and only son, Rehabiah, is mentioned, but it is specified that the latter had a great many sons.

It is not much, but in any case this passage provides certainty on several points that up to now had only been conjectures, albeit well-supported conjectures. First of all that Moses' family survived him and had descendants. Secondly that this fact was well known in Israel and that it could not fail to have been reported in the Chronicles of Joshua and Judges. Consequently the hypothesis of censorship carried out on the text, either by the writer himself or by someone else later, becomes certainty.

However, we still do not have precise and direct confirmation (not wanting to count as such verse 10:31 of Judges, which put us on the trail of Moses' family to start with) that the family went to Palestine and had played a high profile role in the religious and political life of Israel. This is soon found, however, by continuing to read Chronicles. Two chapters further on, in verse 24, we read: “Shebuel the son of Gershom, the son of Moses, was ruler of the treasures. And his brethren by Eliezer; Rehabiah his son, and Jeshaiah his son, and Joram his son, and Zichri his son, and Shelomith his son. Which Shelomith and his brethren were over all the treasures of the dedicated things, which David the king, and the chief fathers, the captains over thousands and hundreds, and the captains of the host, had dedicated. Out of the spoils won in battles did they dedicate to maintain the house of the LORD. And all that Samuel the seer, and Saul the son of Kish, and Abner the son of Ner, and Joab the son of Zeruiah, had dedicated; and whosoever had dedicated any thing, it was under the hand of Shelomith, and of his brethren.”

According to this passage there are six generations between Eliezer, son of Moses, and Shelomith, who lived at the time of David: this makes sense. It also makes sense that Moses' descendants were in Jerusalem at the time of David. In any case, these verses, which evidently escaped, for some reason, the censor's scissors, give us the certainty that Moses' family did not vanish in the Sinai desert, but followed (or perhaps led?) the Jews to Palestine and continued to play a high profile role in the history of Israel. But what role exactly?

 This passage lists in their entirety only the descendants of the younger branch, with Moses' second-born son, Eliezer, as their chief. The main line of progeny, however, stops as usual at Shebuel, Gershom's first-born son. Shebuel, Moses' grandson, is indicated as “ruler of the treasures”; a vague and probably incorrect position, since it is stated immediately afterwards that it was held by the younger line of Moses' descendants. But in any case it is a concrete position, which presupposes his presence in Israel. Had he had any descendants? If the younger branch, in David's time, occupied an important position like that of superintendent of the holy treasure, the main branch must have occupied an even higher position. But the only higher position was that of the high priesthood.

In David's time, after the kingdom of Israel had been incorporated into that of Judah, two high priests were appointed, apparently on an equal footing: Abiathar and Zadok. Abiathar was the son of Achimelech, the high priest killed by Saul in Nob, along with his whole family; he had managed to escape the massacre by taking refuge with David, who was at the time a bandit on the run. Achimelech was the son of Achitub, son of Eli's second-born son, Phinehas. Zadok was Abiathar's uncle, being another of Achitub's sons (2 Sam 8:17). After the massacre in Nob, Zadok had replaced his brother Achimelech in the position of high priest of Israel, remaining loyal to Saul (1 Chr 12:29) and after him to his successor to the throne of Israel, Ishbosheth. When the latter died, Zadok, together with the head of the army Abner, passed into the service of David (2 Sam 5:1-5; 1 Chr 12:24), who then ruled over only the tribes of Judah and Simeon, bringing as a gift the entire kingdom of Israel, with its remaining ten tribes.

Both Zadok and Abiathar, therefore, were direct descendants of Eli and, as high priests, according to the passage in 1 Chr 23:24, had in their direct employment the descendants of Moses' younger branch. It is not likely that Moses' descendants were in a subordinate position to those of Aaron. Thus it is clear that Eli was not Aaron's descendant, but Gershom's, Moses' first-born son.

The same books of Kings systematically confirm that his family, that of the priests, had nothing to do with Aaron's descendants. We have already seen, for example, that on the death of Saul's son Ishbosheth, his highest-ranking functionaries negotiated with David and gave him the kingdom of Israel. The list of the people who on that occasion went into his service is reported in 1 Chronicles 12:23-40. When referring to the Levites there is an explicit mention of “Jehoiada ... the leader of the Aaronites, and with him were three thousand and seven hundred; and Zadok, a young man mighty of valour, and of his father's house twenty and two captains (chiefs)”.

Another glaring “oversight’ on the part of our censor? He captures the situation of the Levites and the priests at the moment of the reunification of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. On one hand there were the priests descended from Eli: Zadok with 22 “chiefs”, which means adult males, among whom were evidently all the descendants of Eliezer (to whom Abiathar and his family, in David's service from the very beginning, should be added); on the other hand the Levites, who were not priests, and in particular Aaron's family, led by Jehoiada. It is true that he avoids leaking the name of Zadok's ancestor, but in practice he declares explicitly that it was not Aaron. This clear distinction between priestly family and Aaron's family is already to be found in the books of Samuel, where, for example, in verses 2 Sam 8:15-18 it is specified that “Zadok the son of Ahitub, and Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, were the priests”, while “Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over both the Cherethites and the Pelethites” (David's personal bodyguard).

There is, therefore, sufficient proof to state with certainty that Eli's “great ancestor” was Moses, not Aaron. A quick count of the years that had passed since the Exodus, based on the lineages of Samuel, Saul and David, shows that Eli was in all likelihood the son of Shebuel. The lineage of the main branch of Moses' family, therefore, can be completely reconstructed: Moses, Gershom, Shebuel, Eli, Phinehas, Ahitub, the brothers Ahimelech and Zadok, Abiathar. Between Gershom and Zadok there are six generations; seven between him and Abiathar. The sum of the generations, therefore,  fits the time available [2].

Now, at last, the mystery of the “disappearance” of Moses' family seems to have been solved. The family of the priests of Israel was composed of the descendants of Moses, and only by them, by birthright. A sensational conclusion, which goes against tradition, but which appears well-founded on the basis of the data provided by the Bible.

 

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