Are There Gaps in David’s Genealogy?

The genealogies in Scripture are important because they provide a historical framework for the Old Testament. In particular, they trace the covenant promise from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, down to David and his descendants, culminating in the Matthew and Luke genealogies that establish Jesus as the Redeemer those covenant promises pointed toward.

One of the more important links in these genealogies is the link between Perez, the son of Judah, and David. This genealogy is contained in Ruth 4:18–22.

Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

This genealogy does not give chronological details for the timespan these generations covered, but we can get those details from elsewhere in Scripture:

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1)

We need to figure out how many years there are from Israel entering the land (and when Salmon encountered Rahab) to the birth of David. We can subtract from 480 the 4 years of Solomon’s reign and the 70 years of David’s lifespan, as well as the 40 years of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness. This leaves 366 years for Salmon to father Boaz by Rahab, Boaz to father Obed by Ruth, Obed to father Jesse, and Jesse to father David. This means 4 generations span about 350 years. Is this possible?

How To Think About Biblical Puzzles

Different genealogies perform different literary functions, and we must carefully examine the genealogy’s context within Scripture to determine its function. The Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, for instance, are very concerned with the direct father/son relationships and with the time spans involved. There’s no need to assume that the Bible means something other than what it clearly states when it tells us that Adam had Seth when he was 130, lived 800 more years, and died when he was 930. Genesis gives us that clearly. We don’t need to look at various parts of Scripture and try to put them together in a way that makes sense. Ruth’s genealogy of Perez doesn’t do that. And the part of the genealogy we have to “solve” deals with chronological information that comes from Scripture itself—not from outside of Scripture.

Any solution that we come to should affirm that the genealogy in Ruth is true and historical.

Any solution that we come to should affirm that the genealogy in Ruth is true and historical. Being able to point to places in Scripture that back up our solution is also important—if we have to appeal to a phenomenon that happens nowhere else, that’s obviously a weaker argument.

One possibility is that there are multiple solutions that young-earth creationists with a high view of Scripture can hold. In that case, we should allow for multiple solutions and study the passage to see if one of the solutions ends up being superior.

Similarities to the Genesis 5 Genealogy

In Genesis 5, Enoch is the seventh from Adam, and Noah is the tenth. And in Genesis 11, Abram is the tenth from Shem. Ruth 4 is also a 10-person genealogy, with Boaz being the seventh from Perez and David being the tenth.

In both Genesis 5 and 11, we know that generations aren’t being omitted to maintain the structure because there is a “scaffolding” of chronological information; it is clear that the goal of Genesis is to give a complete accounting of both the time and the generations from Adam to Noah, and from Seth to Abram. However, Ruth 4 has this structure without the scaffolding that would tell us that no generations have been omitted to arrive at this structure. It is possible that the author of Ruth 4 intentionally mirrored the structure of the Genesis genealogies to make the point that David’s genealogy is as important as the Genesis genealogies, and to emphasize continuity with the patriarchal period this genealogy connects to David.

Is there a place in Scripture where an author omits generations we know existed to maintain a desired structure to make a theological point? Matthew’s genealogy fits this description perfectly. Here is a comparison of Matthew’s genealogy with the same genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3:

If all we had was Matthew’s genealogy, we would think that Joram was the father of Uzziah (also called Azariah), but we know from 1 Chronicles 3 that he is his great-great-grandfather. Matthew had a reason to group the people between Abraham and Jesus into groups of 14 generations.1 That was more important than including every person in the genealogy! And we can see why Matthew did this in the genealogy of Jesus—he was making the point that Jesus is the rightful heir to David’s throne. He was tracing the crown; it didn’t matter whether every single individual in that line was written down.

It’s true, just not exhaustive in its listing of the generations from David to Jesus.

So Matthew’s genealogy has a couple of things in common with Ruth’s genealogy—it tracks the kingly line, and it includes a significant number of people. It’s true, just not exhaustive in its listing of the generations from David to Jesus. This means we can’t rule out the possibility of unlisted generations in a genealogy unless there is an explicit claim or structural evidence that the genealogy is meant to be exhaustive.

In Genesis, people say there are missing generations to add long stretches of time to the Bible’s history. That isn’t our goal here. We’re getting the time span from Scripture—we’re not looking outside of Scripture at all. We’re trying our best to put together the pieces God has given us into a historical picture that makes sense. That’s different from trying to make the biblical text fit a timeline that comes from outside Scripture.

So Genesis has no missing generations, but Matthew’s genealogy clearly skipped people who are listed elsewhere in Scripture. Is the genealogy of Perez in Ruth more like that of Genesis or of Matthew?

Option A: There Are Missing Generations

If there are missing generations, they have to be between Salmon and David, but not every link can have missing generations. We know that Boaz is the father of Obed (Ruth 4:13–17), and that Jesse is the father of David (1 Samuel 17:58). So the candidates for missing generations would be between Salmon and Boaz, and between Obed and Jesse.

A timeline with missing gaps might look something like this—note this is purely hypothetical to illustrate what a reconstruction might look like. All the dates in italics are dates that Scripture doesn’t actually give us, ranging from 1406 to 1040 BC.

This reconstruction makes it clear why adding generations is such an attractive option. I’ve added three unnamed ancestors in places where it might be biblically permissible to do so.

We know Salmon met Rahab in 1406, but in this hypothetical scenario, they didn’t actually beget their child, who is Boaz’s grandfather, for another 20 years (assuming Rahab was young enough to still be in her childbearing years, which is possible if she was a teenager in 1406). Boaz’s father was born 50 years later, and Boaz was born 40 years after that. Obed was born when Boaz was 80 (because he commended Ruth for not going after a younger man). Obed fathered unnamed ancestor C at 41 years old, and unnamed ancestor C fathered Jesse at 65 years old, and Jesse fathered David at 70 years old. Note that all of the ages in italics are completely hypothetical, and all of the unnamed ancestors are people that the Bible never lists—Boaz could have fathered Obed at 60, rather than 80, for example, or there could have been more or fewer unnamed generations. This is just one example of what a reconstruction with missing generations could look like.

It’s worth noting that even in this scenario, the entire line is fathering children at improbably old ages, but individual family lines don’t follow statistics (and this would be even more true if there are no gaps in the genealogy!). Take, for instance, John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States. He was born in 1790 and served as President from 1841 to 1845. His son Lyon Gardiner Tyler was born in 1853, when John Tyler was 63 years old. Lyon’s son Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928, when Lyon was 75 years old! Harrison lived until 2025. So just 3 generations spanned 235 years in this case. Even in this rare situation, each of those generations averaged a span of just under 80 years, whereas the problem described above requires four generations to average a span of just over 90 years between father and son.

Assuming that some generations were skipped, why would the author do that? Since the Bible does not give us this answer, one can only speculate. As mentioned above, there are 10 generations mentioned in Ruth’s genealogy, so the author may have been following the pattern of 10 names that he knew from the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies, which both include 10 generations. Another possibility is that the author selected the five most relevant figures in the history he recorded. Salmon represents the generation of Israelites who entered the promised land. Boaz and Obed are part of the account of Ruth as her second husband and son, respectively. And if Samuel was the author of the book, as many traditions relate, then Jesse and David were important to include since he knew both men, and the book of Ruth leads up to David (his name is the last word in the book). And his audience would have known about David, since he was a mighty warrior and would soon become king. Perhaps both reasons were part of the author’s decision to skip generations, if that is what he did.

Some people think that adding any generations at all to any genealogy where Scripture doesn’t explicitly name those people is a compromise to make it easier to explain naturalistically. What does a reconstruction look like with no generations added?

Option B: No Generations Added—Very Long Lifespans!

If we add no generations, we have to cover that same around 350-year span with only Salmon, Boaz, Obed, and Jesse. Here’s what that might look like.

First, Rahab has to have Boaz at an improbably old age—60 in this hypothetical scenario. Then Boaz, Obed, and Jesse all have to father the next in line at 100+ years old. Men can father children at advanced ages, especially if their wives are much younger. Boaz and Jesse are said in the text to be comparatively older, but nothing in the text suggests they are on the verge of death! And Scripture itself does not give any indication of any miraculous conceptions of these individuals. It also assumes that these men lived approximately 100 years or more at a time when the average life expectancy seemed to be rapidly diminishing (Moses lived to 120, Joshua lived to 110, Joshua’s contemporaries, with the exception of Caleb, died before exceeding 60, Saul probably lived to about 70, David lived to 70, and none of Israel’s kings lived longer than 80 years). Of course, the line from Salmon to Solomon could be an exception to this apparent trend, so we cannot rule out the possibility that many of them reached 100 years.

That being said, people have been reading this passage for a long time, and there is a very long history of interpreting it as a continuous line of direct father/son relationships, simply arguing that all these men fathered their children when they were elderly. That is a valid reading with modern analogous situations we can cite.

Which Option Is Better?

We have two options, both of which are viable interpretations for someone with a high view of Scripture.

We have two options, both of which are viable interpretations for someone with a high view of Scripture. We’re not importing data from outside of Scripture, but both views require us to believe something not explicitly stated in the text. Option A inserts generations that we’re not explicitly given, but Option B interprets the line as a family that, for whatever reason, had children when the patriarch was on death’s door.

This is a situation where a young-earth creationist can hold either option. We have explicit biblical precedent for either situation, and the Bible doesn’t tell us which option to take. The important takeaways that both interpretations would agree with are:

• This genealogy is the true historical lineage from Perez to David.
• God has inspired exactly what we need in the Bible, even if it doesn’t always have all the details we would like it to contain!

Perez’s genealogy should remind us of God’s faithfulness to preserve the covenant line that culminated in the birth of Jesus.