Person Old Testament
Canaanite woman
Shaul's mother was a Canaanite woman, according to the genealogies of Simeon. Mentioned in 2 verses across 2 books, first at Genesis 46:10.
Why it matters. Shaul's mother, a Canaanite woman
- Primary passages
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30 by the FaithGraph team
About Canaanite woman
The Canaanite woman mentioned in Gen.46.10 and Exo.6.15 is the mother of Shaul, who was a son of Simeon. In the genealogies of Simeon, one of the twelve sons of Israel (or 'Jacob'), Shaul is distinguished from his brothers by the fact that his mother was a Canaanite woman. This detail suggests that Simeon married a woman from the Canaanite people, who were the inhabitants of the land of Canaan before the Israelites. The mention of Shaul's mother's Canaanite origin is significant because it shows that intermarriage between the Israelites and the Canaanites did occur, despite the general prohibition against such unions (Deut. Exo.7.3). The inclusion of this information in the genealogies also highlights the importance of maternal lineage in the biblical record.
Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.
Connections
No reviewed connections yet.
Family
Family links from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0). Where the dataset marks an identification as uncertain, the mark is kept. Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus; see the Lineage page, which never merges them.
Appears in Scripture
Named in 2 verses across 2 books. Occurrence data from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); references only, no translation text.