Firstborn Son

The biblical authors paid a great deal of attention to birth order. If twins were born, they immediately identified the firstborn as the babies left the womb (Gen. 38:28). Genealogies vigilantly noted which son in the list was first to be born (for example, Gen. 10:15; 22:21; 25:13; 35:23). This was in part because the firstborn son was considered to be a sign of his father’s strength (Gen. 49:3), but even more important were the social responsibilities and economic advantages that attended being the firstborn.

As the father aged, a time came when the family formally transferred those responsibilities and advantages to the firstborn—a time marked by the aging leader of the family placing his hand on the heir apparent and pronouncing a blessing (Gen. 27:1–40; 48:9–20). From that moment on, the transition to the new family leader was underway as the firstborn son began to assume the responsibility of leading and superintending the well-being of the extended family.[86] Ancient inheritance laws helped provide the resources to meet those responsibilities because the oldest son received a double share of the estate. This was the case even if the actual firstborn was the son of a less-favored wife (Deut. 21:15–17). Within royal families, the eldest son enjoyed yet another privilege: he became the heir apparent to the royal throne (2 Chron. 21:3).

A loving couple gazes at their son. Firstborn sons had many distinct and important roles to play in the culture of God’s Old Testament people.

Within the culture of God’s Old Testament people, the firstborn son of every Israelite woman had to be redeemed. There is a subtle but important difference to note here since many men at that time had more than one wife: the requirement applied not just to the firstborn of the father but also to the firstborn of each woman (Exod. 13:12; 34:19; Num. 18:15). The Lord claimed these sons as his own to serve in the tent of meeting as mediators between him and the entire nation. But the Lord called for the firstborn sons to be redeemed from that special service and replaced by members of the tribe of Levi. All Levite males became substitutes for all the firstborn males of Israel in performing the service the Lord required in the sanctuary (Num. 3:11–13, 40–51; 8:18). The formal redemption took place when the firstborn son was one month old and it required payment of five shekels of silver (Num. 18:15–16; see also the dedication of Jesus in Luke 2:22–24).[87]

The rationale for the Lord’s claim on every firstborn Israelite son builds on the exodus event. The tenth and most striking of the plagues the Lord used to break down the resistance of the Egyptian pharaoh was the death of every firstborn son in Egypt, “from the firstborn son of the Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill” (Exod. 11:5). The Lord graciously spared the Israelites from this devastating plague and so laid a claim on each of the firstborn sons among his people, setting apart those sons for himself (Num. 3:13; 8:17). The ritual redemption of firstborn sons not only honored the Lord’s claim but also reanimated the memory of the event lest it ever be forgotten (Exod. 13:14–15).

This massive gate marks the entry to Solomon’s city of Gezer. Like his father, David, Solomon defied expectation in rising to the throne as a son who was not the firstborn.

With all this social and religious attention given to firstborn sons that enhanced their prominence in Israelite culture, we appropriately pay closer attention to sons who played the role of firstborns even though they were not. This list includes Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, David, and Solomon. None of them were firstborn sons, but in each case their lives were flush with responsibilities and advantages normally associated with the firstborn. The firstborn’s importance also makes it appropriately shocking when we read about the execution of firstborn sons. Within the culture of the ancient world, this was not just a personal tragedy but an event that created a social tidal wave that overturned normal life. That was the Lord’s intention in targeting the firstborn sons in Egypt during the tenth plague (Exod. 11:5; 12:12, 29), and it was the consequence of the curse pronounced on anyone who attempted to rebuild Jericho (Josh. 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34). The importance of the firstborn also added to the horror of people sacrificing their firstborn sons in an attempt to manipulate divine favor (2 Kings 3:27; Mic. 6:7).

The prominent role the firstborn played in society provides the energy behind the metaphorical designation of someone as firstborn. This honorary title was given to Israel as a way of distinguishing that nation as the Lord’s own special people whom he would not disown even when they abandoned him (Exod. 4:22; Jer. 31:9). Although Jesus was literally the firstborn son of Mary (Luke 2:7), this descriptor is also used as a way of magnifying Jesus’s status in other settings. He is called “the firstborn over all creation” (Col. 1:15). And he is also called the “firstborn from the dead” (Rev. 1:5) because not only was he the first one to be raised from the dead never to die again but he also is the most important of all who will ever rise from the dead (see Rom. 8:29). Finally, the biblical authors also refer to Christians with this honorary designation (Heb. 12:23).