to be enrolled by genealogy: to have one's line of descent formally recorded in an official family register.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This verb belongs to the record-keeping world of Israel after the return from exile. It appears only in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, the books most concerned with tracing who belonged to which family and tribe. To be enrolled by genealogy was to have your line of descent entered in an official register that fixed who your ancestors were and where you stood in the nation.
Being on the list, or missing from it, carried real weight. It decided who could serve as a priest, who held a rightful share in the ancestral land, and who counted as a full member of the restored community. In Ezra and Nehemiah, families who could not find their names in the register were held back from the priesthood until the question of their descent could be settled.
The act of being entered on the list is what this word names. A closely related word (יַחַשׂ) names the written genealogy itself, the record a person was enrolled in.
ties the enrollment specifically to a proven line of descent, not merely to being on any list1Ch 5:17
Both
both describe being formally entered on an official, kept listNeh 7:5
Only enrolled by genealogy
in ordinary English "enroll" suggests signing yourself up for a class or program by choice, missing that this registration turned on documented ancestry
“reckoned by genealogy”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“registered”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How yaḥas differs from similar Hebrew words
יַחַשׂthe written genealogical record itself, whereas this word is the act of being entered into it
Names the ACT of being entered in the family rolls: people are enrolled or registered by descent, the process itself rather than the paperwork it produces.1Ch 5:17Ezr 8:1
Carries the consequence when the enrolling cannot be done: those who could not establish their registration were shut out of the priesthood as unclean.Ezr 2:62Neh 7:64
Both
Both belong to the one system of tracking Israel by family line: in Nehemiah 7:5 the act of enrolling the returnees and the record they are enrolled in stand together, the doing and the thing done.Neh 7:5
Names the written record itself: the genealogical list as a standing document in which the names are set down and by which people are counted.2Ch 31:172Ch 31:18
yaḥas in the other biblical languages
γενεαλογέωGreek“to trace genealogy”the Greek verb for tracing a person's line of descent, used in Hebrews of Melchizedek, whose descent is pointedly not traced
Enrolls a person onto Israel's official temple and tribal rolls: an administrative recording of priests, Levites, and family heads into the community census.1Ch 9:12Ch 31:16
Governs membership and eligibility, so that those whose enrollment could not be found in the register were shut out of the priesthood.Ezr 2:62Neh 7:64
Both
Both fix a person's place by descent, reckoning where someone belongs within a line of ancestry.1Ch 5:17Heb 7:6
Traces a line of descent from an ancestor: the act of reckoning whom a person comes from, an abstract accounting of ancestry rather than entry into any official list.Heb 7:6
Carries a single New Testament argument, that Melchizedek's descent cannot be traced from Levi, so he stands outside any recorded lineage and serves as a figure whose ancestry is deliberately unaccounted.Heb 7:6
What scholars say about yaḥas
The verb is the reflexive and passive form of a root meaning to enroll or reckon, used exclusively of registration by genealogical descent. It is confined to the post-exilic literature (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah), where genealogical registration secured tribal identity, priestly legitimacy, and title to ancestral land. HALOT, BDB, and DCH agree on the sense, and the standard commentaries on Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah treat the registers as working administrative instruments of the restored community rather than antiquarian lists.
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. יחשׂlexicon
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. יחשׂlexicon
DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. יחשׂlexicon
Sara Japhet, I & II Chronicles: A Commentary, OTL (1993)commentary