Exodus 6:14 - Meaning and Application

Here we have a family record, but not a pointless one, like the kind Paul warns against (1 Timothy 1:4). It ends with the two great leaders, Moses and Aaron, and is included to show that they were true Israelites, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, sent to rescue the very people from whom they came. They were raised up from among their own brothers and sisters, just as Christ would later be, the prophet, priest, Redeemer, and lawgiver for Israel. His own family line was also carefully preserved.

The heads of three tribal families are named here, matching the earlier record in Genesis 46. One writer, Dr. Lightfoot, thinks Reuben, Simeon, and Levi are named separately because their lives carried marks of shame from their father Jacob. Reuben had committed incest, and Simeon and Levi had killed the men of Shechem. If that is the reason, then Moses is giving them this honor to show God’s mercy in their repentance and forgiveness, as an example for later believers. But the first two may mainly be mentioned because of Levi, from whom Moses and Aaron came, along with all the priests of Israel.

Levi’s line was set apart early. Kohath, from whom Moses, Aaron, and the priests came, was not Levi’s oldest son, but a younger one (Exodus 6:16). This shows that God’s gifts do not follow birth order. God often chooses the younger before the older, turning normal expectations upside down.

Moses also records the ages of Levi, Kohath, and Amram, Moses’ father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. They all lived a long time, Levi to 137, Kohath to 133, and Amram to 137. Moses himself lived much less time than they did, and he later set seventy or eighty years as the normal span of human life (Psalm 90:10). By then Israel had become a large nation, and God’s revelation was being written down by Moses instead of being handed on by memory alone. Those were two main reasons the earlier patriarchs lived so long, and once those reasons were gone, shorter lives were enough.

Aaron married Elisheba, the same name as Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah. Miriam is the same name as Mary. Elisheba was the daughter of Amminadab, one of the leading fathers in the tribe of Judah, and the tribes of Levi and Judah often married into each other’s families (Exodus 6:23). Moses also does not hide the fact that his father Amram married Jochebed, his own aunt (Exodus 6:20). Numbers 26:59 shows that this was his own father’s sister, or at least a half-sister. This kind of marriage was later forbidden as incest (Leviticus 18:12), so it could have looked like a stain on the family, even though it happened before that law was given. Yet Moses does not cover it up. He is committed to truth, whether it reflects well on him or not.

He closes this genealogy with a special note of honor for the men he has named, even though he himself was one of them (Exodus 6:26, 27). These are the Moses and Aaron whom God chose to serve as his chief messengers. These are the men God spoke to, and the men who spoke to Pharaoh for Israel’s sake (Exodus 6:26, 27). There is real honor in knowing God and serving his church. Those are truly great whom God speaks with and whom he uses in his service. Moses and Aaron had that honor, and in a smaller way all God’s saints share it, because he has made them kings and priests to our God.

At the end of the chapter, Moses returns to the story he had broken off a little suddenly (Exodus 6:13). He repeats the charge God gave him to speak to Pharaoh: “Say everything I tell you” (Exodus 6:29). Like a faithful ambassador, he was to leave nothing out. Those who go on God’s errands must not hide any part of God’s message.

He also repeats his own objection, made earlier (Exodus 6:30). People who have spoken rashly before should often think back on it with sorrow, and Moses seems to do that here.