Kohath

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According to the Torah, Kohath was one of the sons of Levi^[1], and the patriarchal founder of the Kohathites, one of the four main divisions among the Levites in Biblical times; in some apocryphal texts such as the Testament of Levi, and the Book of Jubilees, Levi's wife, Kohath's mother, is named as Milkah, a daughter of Aram^[2]^[3]. In the Testament of Levi, Kohath's birth, occurring when Levi was 35 years old, is accompanied by a vision of Kohath being on high in the midst of all the congregation; in the vision, Kohath's name is described as meaning beginning of majesty and instruction, and is portrayed as a prophecy of him being raised above his siblings^[4], but according to biblical scholars, the meaning of Kohath's name is fairly unknown, although it may be related to an Aramaic word meaning obey^[5].

In the Book of Exodus, Kohath is described as having four sons - Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel - with Amram marrying a woman named Jochebed, and becoming the biological parents of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam^[6]; despite some Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Septuagint version of the Torah stating that Jochebed was Kohath's cousin^[7], the masoretic text states that she was Kohath's sister^[8] - Amram's aunt - although Jochebed's relationship to Levi is not explicitly stated. The Book of Numbers states that during the lifetime of his grandson, Kohath ended up with 8,600 descendants

Textual scholars attribute the genealogy to the Book of Generations, a document originating from a similar religiopolitical group and date to the priestly source^[9]. According to some biblical scholars, the Torah's genealogy for Levi's descendants is actually an aetiological myth reflecting the fact that there were four different groups among the levites - the Gershonites, Kohathites, Merarites, and Aaronids^[10]^[11]; Aaron - the eponymous ancestor of the Aaronids - couldn't be portrayed as a brother to Kohath, as the narrative about the birth of Moses (brother of Aaron), which textual scholars attribute to the earlier Elohist source, specifies that his parents were both Levites^[12]. Biblical scholars suspect that the Elohist account offers both matrilinial and patrilinial descent from Levites in order to magnify the religious credentials of Moses^[13].