Does yālad in the hiphil Prove There Are No Gaps in Genesis 5 and 11 Genealogies?

All attempts to calculate a date for creation and Noah’s flood rest upon one assumption: Genesis 5 and 11 contain complete,
father-son genealogies without gaps. This assumption, in turn, rests on the assumption that the Hebrew verb
yālad implies a father-son relationship in these chapters.

We have demonstrated in

previous articles that yālad in fact represents only a general ancestral relationship—or less. However, no-gap proponents
note that a particular hiphil form of yālad is used in Genesis 5 and 11 and cite this particular form as proof of no
gaps. For example, J. Paul Tanner wrote in a 2015 publication: “Of the 170 times that a hiphil form of the verb [yālad]
is used in Genesis, it always is used of a man being the literal father of a son, not merely an ‘ancestor.’”
¹ (Recently Tanner has modified this to a claim of 96% of 176 instances throughout the Old Testament;
² he acknowledges the exceptions:

Deuteronomy 4:25,
2 Kings 20:18, and
Isaiah 39:7.
³), the last two being identical passages.

But there is a problem with his statement: It assumes that all relationships without a clarifying biblical narrative are
father-son. Yet if all uses of
yālad in the
hiphil in the Bible are analyzed, it is clear that most of them lack a descriptive narrative to clarify a precise
relationship; and often the named individuals appear only in the verse cited. Such relationships are “unknown”; only
if a biblical narrative clarifies the relationship can it be considered “known.” Those who wish to use statistics to
infer the meaning of
yālad in the
hiphil in Genesis 5 and 11 must develop those statistics based only on known relationships.

In Genesis there are ~69 instances of
yālad in the
hiphil ; ~45 of these are unknown, all from Genesis 5 and 11:

Genesis 5:6–7, 9–10, 12–13, 15–16, 18–19, 21–22, 25–26; 11:10–25. Only ~14 have a narrative that suggests the relationship.
Eight instances are father and son:
Genesis 5:3–4, 28, 30; 11:27b, 25:19. In five instances
yālad in the
hiphil is used for multiple offspring:

Genesis 5:32; 6:10 (Noah);

11:26–27a (Terah); and
17:20 (Ishmael). It is significant, however, that the first named for Noah and Terah is not the oldest—meaning that
yālad in the
hiphil is imprecise. Another instance applies to more distant progeny:
Genesis 48:6 refers to Joseph’s potentially longer-term offspring (
môledeth).

In Mosaic literature beyond Genesis there are ~5 instances of
yālad in the
hiphil ; all are known, and one is clearly father-son (
Numbers 26:58). Three apply to more distant descendants:
Leviticus 25:45 refers to future offspring of slaves; and
Deuteronomy 4:25 and
28:41 apply to future descendants of the Israelites in the Exodus. One is questionable: In
Numbers 26:29, “Gilead” almost certainly means people living in the land of Gilead—not a person.
⁴

In summary, in Mosaic literature (including Genesis), 9 cases of
yālad in the
hiphil are father-son; 4 are not father-son; 1 is questionable; 5 are muddled by multiple names; and ~45 are unknown.

The greatest number of examples of
yālad in the
hiphil occur in non-Mosaic literature. The following are unknown:
1 Chronicles 1:34; 2:18, 22, 36–41, 44, 46; 4:2, 8, 11–12, 14; 7:32; 8:7–9, 11, 32, 36–37; 9:38, 42–43;
Nehemiah 12:10–11. Eleven other cases of yālad in the hiphil are figurative, either metaphorical or instructional
in the third person:
Job 38:28;
Ecclesiastes 5:14; 6:3;
Isaiah 45:10; 55:10; 59:4; 66:9;
Jeremiah 16:3; 29:6;
Ezekiel 18:10, 14.

We analyze the remaining known instances as follows:

1. Seven examples are father-son or probably father-son:
   1. 1 Chronicles 1:34, AbrahamàIsaac
   2. 1 Chronicles 2:20, HuràUriàBezalel (
      Exodus 17:10; 31:2; 35:30).
   3. 1 Chronicles 8:1, Benjaminàsons; however, there are discrepancies between the names in
      Genesis 46:21 and
      1 Chronicles 8:1–2 and this is a concern.
   4. 1 Chronicles 14:3 refers to David and his children.
   5. 2 Chronicles 11:21; 13:21; and 24:3 are father-children, but they do not provide useful genealogical information;
      they only state that Rehoboam, Abijah, and Joash had children.
2. Eight examples definitely have gaps or use
   yālad in the
   hiphil to refer to more distant descendants:
   1. Ruth 4:18–22 and
      1 Chronicles 2:10–13 record David’s genealogy with identified gaps.
   2. 2 Kings 20:18 and Isaiah 39:7 are the case of Hezekiah, in which
      yālad in the
      hiphil clearly applies to distant descendants.
   3. 1 Chronicles 6:4–14 is the high priest list from the Exodus to the exile—with gaps.
      ⁵
   4. 1 Chronicles 8:33–34 (1 Chronicles 9:39–40), King Saul’s genealogy, incorrectly lists his uncle Ner as his
      grandfather (see
      1 Samuel 9:1; 14:50–51).
   5. Ezekiel 47:22 refers to long-term property rights of the offspring of resident aliens among the Jews.
3. One example is probably not father-son:
   1. Judges 11:1, GileadàJephthah is almost surely another example in which
      yālad in the
      hiphil is used for people groups, meaning a man of Gilead.

Clearly the large majority of instances of
yālad in the
hiphil in non-Mosaic literature are unknown or figurative—and the known instances are roughly split equally between
father-son and not father-son.

One other fact gleaned from the above analysis is that all examples of long genealogies using
yālad in the
hiphil are either unknown (Genesis 5 and 11; 1 Chronicles 2:36–41; Nehemiah 12:10–11) or have gaps (Ruth 4:18–22;
1 Chronicles 2:10–13; 1 Chronicles 6:4–14). This suggests that long genealogies may be telescoped.

Based on the above, it is not plausible to use statistical data to claim that
yālad in the
hiphil uniformly means a father-son relationship in the Bible. In both Mosaic and non-Mosaic literature, that is
the situation with only about half of the known cases. This statistical data thus fails to suggest that the Genesis 5
and 11 genealogies are complete and without gaps. To the contrary, this data suggests that there probably
are gaps.

Readers are invited to review and comment on any or all of these examples. Only cursory explanations of the above can be
made in this brief document, but our e-book

God of the Gaps
includes a more detailed analysis.