People and genealogy

The people of Scripture

The people this site has written or filed, set in the period each one stands in, from before Abraham to the letters of the apostles.

Summary

111 lives are written here in full, and 117 more names carry a register row with the verses that hold them. Five studies take a whole group at once and are counted apart.

Genesis opens with every nation. It narrows to the family God calls in Abraham.
The family goes into Egypt, comes out under Moses, and takes the land under Joshua.
Judges lead until Israel asks for a king. Then 39 reigns follow the split.
Assyria takes the north and Babylon the south. Persia sends the people home.
The Gospels open four hundred years later. The Twelve carry the story into Acts.

The people by era

Show the groups

Five walks across the familyeach takes a whole group at once0 group studies
Before AbrahamAdam to the tower1 written life, 1 in the register
The conquest and the judgesJoshua to Samuel1 in the register
The united kingdomSaul, David and Solomon1 written life, 1 in the register
Israel, the northern throneJeroboam to Hoshea1 written life, 1 in the register
The kingdom years, both thronesdated by century, not by reign1 written life, 1 in the register
Exile and returnBabylon to the Persian years2 written lives
Jesus and the Gospelsthe birth to the ascension2 in the register

Before Abraham

The first eleven chapters of Genesis, from the garden to Babel. The rest of Scripture keeps looking back to these names.

1 written life, 1 in the register

NoahA righteous man who found favor with God in a corrupt generationEdward Hicks, Noah's Ark (1846)

The register: 1 more names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

Nimrod“The mighty hunter before the LORD” and first empire-builder — founder of Babel and Nineveh, the seed of the world-city that opposes the city of God (10:8–12)3 passages

Back to Before Abraham

The conquest and the judges

The land taken, then nearly lost again, under leaders God raised one at a time. Ruth belongs to these years.

1 in the register

The register: 1 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

NaomiElimelech's widow who returned from Moab calling herself Mara — "the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me" — and whose emptiness God filled through Ruth's faithfulness and Boaz's redemption4 passages

Back to The conquest and the judges

The united kingdom

Three reigns over one nation, with the prophets who stood beside them. The throne is given, built up, then split at Solomon's death.

1 written life, 1 in the register

NathanDavid's court prophet, the trusted counselor who delivered the Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7) and confronted David's gravest sin with the parable of the ewe lamb (2 Samuel 12). His ministry set the prophet as the conscience of the monarchyJames Tissot, Nathan Rebukes David

The register: 1 more names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

NabalThe wealthy fool of Carmel — "as his name is, so is he" — who repaid David's protection with insult; his heart died within him when Abigail told him what her wisdom had averted1 passage

Back to The united kingdom

Israel, the northern throne

Nine dynasties rose and fell in two hundred years, each judged by the calves at Bethel and Dan. Elijah and Elisha were sent against this throne.

1 written life, 1 in the register

NadabThe second king of Israel who reigned only two years

The register: 1 more names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

NabothThe Jezreelite who refused to sell the inheritance of his fathers to Ahab; framed by Jezebel's letters and stoned — the vineyard whose blood set Elijah at the king's door2 passages

Back to Israel, the northern throne

The kingdom years, both thrones

Names the record sets in the kingdom years without naming a throne. The prophets here are dated by century, not by the king they served.

1 written life, 1 in the register

NahumNahum of Elkosh prophesied the fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, fulfilled in 612 BC when the Medes and Babylonians besieged and destroyed the cityUnknown, The Prophet Nahum, San Giovanni in Laterano

The register: 1 more names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

NaamanCaptain of the host of Aram, a great man and a leper, healed in the Jordan's seventh dip at Elisha's word — the Gentile grace Jesus cited at Nazareth (Luke 4:27)6 passages

Back to The kingdom years, both thrones

Exile and return

The people who kept faith in a foreign court, and the ones who came back to build. Two empires and their kings stand here too.

2 written lives

Jesus and the Gospels

The Twelve stand here, where a reader first meets them, with the family, the friends, the rulers who tried Jesus, and the witnesses of the resurrection.

2 in the register

The register: 2 names in this era, each with the passages that hold them

Back to Jesus and the Gospels

Keep studying

Each of the 111 written lives cites the chapters it stands on. A name here is a way into the text.

Read it2

On this page

Subjects3

Where they stood3

The written lives come from this site’s own character pages. The register rows come from its person dossiers. The number in a register row is how many passages Orville J. Nave lists under that name in Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a public domain work.