Jehoiada: The Father Named in Benaiah's Shadow

A man who lived in the days of the united kingdom

Jehoiada (Hebrew יְהוֹיָדָע) belongs to the era of the united kingdom, placed at around 1095 BC to 975 BC in an era placed on Ussher's chronology (1650). He is known in Scripture chiefly as the father of Benaiah, and his name is scattered across three books: twelve mentions in 1 Kings, five in 1 Chronicles, four in 2 Samuel, beginning at 2 Samuel 8:18 and running through 1 Chronicles. That is a substantial footprint for a man about whom no story is told.

Every mention is a list, a note or a name in a phrase

This has to be said plainly at the start, because it shapes everything else: no scene is told about Jehoiada. Every single mention is a list, a genealogy or a passing note. He never speaks. No one speaks to him. He takes no recorded action of his own in any narrative.

What happens instead is that his name travels inside his son's name. In 1 Chronicles 11:22 we read, "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, killed the two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day." Two verses later the summary comes: "Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did these things, and had a name among the three mighty men" (1 Chronicles 11:24). The deeds are Benaiah's. The lion, the pit, the snowy day, the two sons of Ariel of Moab, all of it is the son's record. The father is present only as the patronymic that identifies him.

The same pattern holds in the administrative lists. "And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and the Pelethites; and the sons of David were chief officials serving the king" (1 Chronicles 18:17). And in the roster of monthly divisions: "The third captain of the army for the third month was Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada the chief priest. In his division were twenty-four thousand" (1 Chronicles 27:5). Beyond these, his name stands in further references that the dossier lists without quoting their text: 2 Samuel 8:18, 2 Samuel 20:23, 2 Samuel 23:20, 2 Samuel 23:22, 1 Kings 1:8, 1 Kings 1:26, 1 Kings 1:32, 1 Kings 1:36, 1 Kings 1:38, 1 Kings 1:44, 1 Kings 2:25, 1 Kings 2:29, 1 Kings 2:46 and 1 Kings 4:4.

Leader of the household of Aaron

One verse does give Jehoiada something of his own. "Jehoiada was the leader of the household of Aaron; and with him were three thousand seven hundred" (1 Chronicles 12:27). It is still a list entry, not a scene, but it is a weighty one. He leads the household of Aaron, and three thousand seven hundred are counted with him. Paired with the description in 1 Chronicles 27:5, where he is called "the chief priest," we have a man of priestly standing with thousands associated with his leadership, and not one recorded word or deed to go with the title.

The son's sword and the priestly office

The one passage with narrative movement in Jehoiada's dossier is again about Benaiah: "Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell on him, and killed him; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness. The king put Benaiah the son of Jehoiada in his place over the army; and the king put Zadok the priest in the place of Abiathar" (1 Kings 2:34-35). Jehoiada's name is spoken twice in two verses, and both times it is only to say whose son this executioner and new commander of the army is. The verse ends with a priestly replacement, Zadok set in the place of Abiathar, while the man the Chronicler calls chief priest stands in the sentence only as a father.

Failures that Scripture does not record

Scripture is willing to expose the sins of its people, and where a dossier shows them they must be told. Here there are none to tell. No sin, no lapse, no rebuke of Jehoiada is recorded in any of the passages where his name stands. That silence is not a commendation either. It is simply silence, and it would be dishonest to turn it into either a halo or an accusation.

What we do not know

We do not know his parents; Scripture does not name them. No tribe or people is given for him, even though 1 Chronicles 12:27 sets him over the household of Aaron. We do not know where he was born, how long he lived, how he died, or whether he saw the deeds of his son that the Chronicler recorded. There is no scene, so there is no voice, no face, no moment we can watch.

No line drawn to the New Testament

The dossier lists no New Testament references for this Jehoiada, and so no line forward from him may be drawn here. What remains is a man counted among the household of Aaron with three thousand seven hundred beside him (1 Chronicles 12:27), named chief priest (1 Chronicles 27:5), and remembered in Scripture mostly because someone else was called his son. For many readers that is a familiar shape of faithfulness, and the Bible keeps the name on the page.