Nahath

Nahath is the name of three Old Testament men: an Edomite chief descended from Esau, a Kohathite Levite in the ancestral line of Samuel, and a Levitical overseer in Hezekiah's reform. The same form covers a clan father in Edom and two figures inside the worship structures of Israel.

Son of Reuel

The first Nahath is a grandson of Esau through Reuel and Basemath. The genealogy in Genesis lists him among Reuel's four sons: "And these are the sons of Reuel: Nahath, and Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah: these were the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife" (Gen 36:13). The chiefs list a few verses later names him at the head: "And these are the sons of Reuel, Esau's son: chief Nahath, chief Zerah, chief Shammah, chief Mizzah: these are the chiefs who came of Reuel in the land of Edom; these are the sons of Basemath, Esau's wife" (Gen 36:17). The Chronicler repeats the line without the chief titles: "The sons of Reuel: Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, and Mizzah" (1Chr 1:37). In each notice Nahath stands first among Reuel's sons, identifying him as the head of one of the founding clans of Edom.

The Levite in Samuel's Line

A second Nahath appears in the Kohathite genealogy that traces Samuel's descent. The Chronicler records him as a son of Elkanah and father of further descent: "The sons of Elkanah: Zophai his son, and Nahath his son" (1Chr 6:26). A few verses on, the same line is recited in reverse from the singer Heman backward, and the corresponding name is given as Toah: "the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah" (1Chr 6:34). The opening of 1 Samuel uses yet a third form, Tohu, in tracing the lineage of Elkanah the father of Samuel: "Now there was a certain man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite" (1Sam 1:1). Nahath, Toah, and Tohu name the same Levite at three points in the chain that runs down to Samuel.

Overseer Under Hezekiah

The third Nahath belongs to the reorganization of the temple offerings under King Hezekiah. After the people brought in tithes in heaps, Hezekiah appointed overseers from among the Levites to receive and distribute them: "And Jehiel, and Azaziah, and Nahath, and Asahel, and Jerimoth, and Jozabad, and Eliel, and Ismachiah, and Mahath, and Benaiah, were overseers under the hand of Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by the appointment of Hezekiah the king, and Azariah the leader of the house of God" (2Chr 31:13). Nahath here serves inside a named team of ten subordinate overseers, working under Conaniah and Shimei and answerable to the king and the chief priest.