Letushim is a name found in the King James Bible, appearing 1 time in the text.
Who This Was
Letushim was a descendant of Dedan, and thus a great-grandson of Abraham through Abraham’s wife Keturah. The name appears only once in the King James Bible, in the table of nations recorded in Genesis 25. After Sarah’s death, Abraham married Keturah, and she bore him several sons, among them Jokshan. Jokshan fathered Sheba and Dedan, and Dedan’s sons were Asshurim, Letushim, and Leummim. Letushim is therefore listed among the third generation of Abraham’s descendants through Keturah, a branch of the family tree that Scripture distinguishes from the line of promise through Isaac.
The setting of the passage is Abraham’s final years. Genesis 25 opens with Abraham taking another wife and then carefully records the sons born to him, before noting that he gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away eastward, away from Isaac, while he was still alive. This means Letushim belonged to a clan that was deliberately separated from the covenant inheritance. The text does not record any deed, journey, or word of Letushim himself. He appears only as a name within a genealogy, one link in a chain that traces the widening family of Abraham.
What Scripture says of Letushim is therefore very little, and that little is genealogical. He is named as a son of Dedan and a brother of Asshurim and Leummim. The source note identifies the Letushim as a nomadic tribe descended from Dedan, which fits the pattern of the surrounding peoples in this section of Genesis. Beyond his place in that lineage, the Bible tells us nothing of his life, his character, or his end.
The Name
The meaning of the name Letushim is not clearly recoverable from the Hebrew with any certainty. Scholars have proposed various suggestions, often connecting the name to words for hammering, sharpening, or being joined, but none of these is firmly established. Because the name appears only here and belongs to a people rather than to a single well-known individual, there is no independent context in Scripture to confirm its sense. It is best to say plainly that the meaning is uncertain rather than to assign a definition the text does not give.
A Closing Thought
Most of us will never be remembered by name in a sacred genealogy, and neither was Letushim remembered for anything he did. He simply appears, a single line in a long list, and then the story moves on. Yet God’s Word preserves him. There is quiet comfort in that: our lives may feel like one unnoticed entry among many, but we are not unknown to the One who numbers generations and calls each person by name. Faithfulness does not require a famous legacy; it requires belonging to the story God is telling.
At a Glance
- Gender: Male
- Testament: Old
- Mentions in the KJV: 1
Where It Appears in Scripture
- Genesis 25:3 — And Jokshan begat Sheba, and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim, and Letushim, and Leummim.