The sons of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, his son Rephaiah, his son Arnan, his son Obadiah, his son Shecaniah: Hananiah is the fifty-fourth generation from Adam. From here on, it is not clear how the line of descent should be counted. Is Pelatiah the fifty-fifth generation, Jeshaiah the fifty-sixth generation, Rephaiah the fifty-seventh, and so on? Or are Pelatiah and Jeshaiah of the same generation? It is not clear here whether the list of names in this verse covers two, six, or seven generations. The meaning of this verse is fairly clear in both Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, but neither translation is a literal translation of the Masoretic Text. A literal translation reads as follows: “And the son of Hananiah Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, the sons of Rephaiah, the sons of Arnan, the sons of Obadiah, the sons of Shecaniah.” The footnote in Bible en français courant states, “The Hebrew text of this verse is not clear.” This is true for two reasons: (a) The singular “son” in the Hebrew introduces two sons: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah. (b) In the rest of the verse the plural “the sons of” occurs four times instead of the expected singular “his son.” Contemporary English Version avoids the problem somewhat by saying “descendants” instead of sons as follows: “Hananiah’s descendants were Pelatiah, Jeshaiah, Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah, and Shecaniah.” But this rendering does not indicate what relationship any of these men had to one another. Other solutions include the following:

• (1) The ancient versions begin with the plural “sons,” followed four times by the singular “his son,” and this is the basis for the Revised Standard Version translation (also New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, New Living Translation, Revised English Bible, Reina-Valera revisada, Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje). According to this translation, two sons of Hananiah are listed, followed by four generations of Jeshaiah’s descendants. Alternatively, it is possible to understand each occurrence of “his son” as referring to another son of Hananiah, which gives the same meaning as interpretation 4 below; that is, the text refers to Hananiah and his six sons.

• (2) Some translations give basically the same meaning as Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation, but they solve the difficulty of the Hebrew text differently. Jewish Publication Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, for example, say “And the sons of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah; the sons of [Jeshaiah]: Rephaiah; the sons of [Rephaiah]: Arnan; the sons of [Arnan]: Obadiah; the sons of [Obadiah]: Shecaniah.” But this translation is odd, since after each occurrence of the words “the sons of [X],” only one name follows.

• (3) Another solution is to correct the four occurrences of “the sons of” in the Masoretic Text to “his son” and then to punctuate with a comma after each occurrence of “his son.” This solution requires that the expression “his son” be added after the last name Shecaniah. This produces the following translation: “Sons of Hananiah: Pelatiah; Jeshaiah his son, Rephaiah his son, Arnan his son, Obadiah his son, Shecaniah his son” (New Jerusalem Bible, Osty-Trinquet). According to this translation, only one son of Hananiah is listed, and the following names are descendants of Pelatiah for five generations. Moffatt corrects the text to read “Hananiah was the father of Pelatiah, Pelatiah of Jeshaiah, Jeshaiah of Rephaiah, Rephaiah of Arnan, Arnan of Obadiah, Obadiah of Shecaniah” (similarly La Bible Pléiade), which gives the same meaning as the translation in New Jerusalem Bible. Compare also “The son of Hananiah: Pelatiah, his son Jeshaiah, his son Rephaiah, his son Arnon, his son Obadiah, his son Shecaniah” (Knoppers). This is also the reading of the Septuagint.

• (4) Another approach is to correct the Masoretic Text by omitting all four occurrences of “the sons of” and replacing it with the word “and.” This correction of the Masoretic Text is the basis for the rendering “The sons of Hananiah were Pelatiah, Jeshaiah, Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah, and Shecaniah” (New American Bible; similarly Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Einheitsübersetzung). This translation results in six sons of Hananiah.

Since none of these people is mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament (the Obadiah mentioned here is not the prophet who wrote the book of Obadiah), it is impossible to be sure how many generations are intended, whether several from Hananiah to Shecaniah or whether only two or three generations. The differences in the translations quoted above reflect this uncertainty.

Another possibility is that the sons of Rephaiah, of Arnan, of Obadiah, and of Shecaniah were not descendants of Hananiah. They may have been other descendants of David living at the time of Zerubbabel. If this is the case, then Zerubbabel’s descendants are listed for two generations only: his son Hananiah and his grandsons Pelatiah and Jeshaiah. Some translations make no attempt to clarify the relationship of the persons named in the second half of this verse. Compare “The descendants of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, and the sons of Rephaiah, of Arnan, of Obadiah and of Shecaniah” (New International Version; similarly Segond], La Bible du Semeur, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Nueva Versión Internacional).

Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament gives only a {D} rating to the Masoretic Text, suggesting that perhaps the precise genealogy was not known to the author. If the Masoretic Text is to make any sense, the meaning may be “Descendants of Hananiah: Pelatiah and Jeshaiah, as well as the sons of Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah and Shecaniah” (Bible en français courant; similarly New Century Version). Such a translation allows for the possibility that Rephaiah, Arnan, Obadiah, and Shecaniah all lived at the same time. Translators must simply choose one of the possible ways of understanding and translating this text and may state in a footnote that the translation is uncertain.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .