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THE NAMING OF THE 12 TRIBES |
EXAMPLE 1: Gn30-10a Zilpah was young;her pregnancy wasn-t noticed
EXAMPLE 2: Gn29-34b Jacob personally named Levi;Leah named others
EXAMPLE 3: Gn29-34c THEREFORE HIS NAME IS used by populous tribes
BACKGROUND
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Gn30 describes the naming of the 12 tribes, that is, the
12 children of Jacob which formed the basis for the
Jewish people.
THE TEXT
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The text is presented below. The naming of almost all 11
children is described by the Bible in identical language. However
there are 4 minor differences. e.g.
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SHE conceived ----- & gave birth (Typical phrase)--eg Gn29-31
SHE conceived AGAIN & gave birth--Gn29-32
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THE RASHI
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Rashi explains each of these 4 minor differences. For
example the phrase CONCEIVED AGAIN is mentioned when a woman
has a 2nd child but is not mentioned by the first child. Hence
as might be expected there are 4 exceptions---by the first child
of each matriarch.
THE LISTS
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We present below the 4 differences. The footnotes explain the
reasons. The hyperlinks above present more elaborate lists.
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| TYPICAL PHRASE |
EXCEPTIONAL PHRASE |
EXCEPTION OCCURS |
| She CONCEIVED & gave birth |
She gave birth |
Gad, Asher*1 |
| She conceived AGAIN*2 |
She conceived |
Rvn,Dn,Joe,Yschr |
| SHE named him so & so*3 |
HE named him so & so |
Levi |
| THEREFORE she named him |
she named him*4 |
Judah,Dan,Levi |
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COMMENTS |
*1 These were ZIPLAHS children The word CONCEPTION is mentioned
by the other 3 matriarchs. Rashis notes that pregnancy is not
always noticeable in younger woman and suggests that Zilpah
was the youngest of the 4 matriarchs (Rashi also gives further
reasons why the Torah tells us this but our main focus here
is on differences in phraseology)
*2 The word CONCEIVED AGAIN is always mentioned except by the
FIRST child. This is so obvious that Rashi did not mention
it.
*3 Recall that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. Hence Leah
tried to stabalize her marriage by bringing in more children.
Since, by prophecy, everyone knew that Jacob would have 12
children (This is proven in the main posting) therefore when
Leah had her 3rd child she had contributed 3/12 or 25% of
the children and hence was equal in wifehood to Rachel.
While the other names of the children reflect Leahs
bitterness (God has SEEN my SUFFERING (REUBAYN), God
has HEARD my SUFFERING (SHIMON)) by contrast, Leah named
Levi because she now expected LOVE (LEVI=LOVE).
Jacob accepted this and HE named the child LEVI=LOVE to
show his acceptance of Leahs desires. (By contrast the
other children were named by Leah) Other sources cited
by Rashi point out that BRINGING LOVE was a theme in LEVIS
life (He brought love to Jacob and Leah; later he helped
marriages in the Temple; he also brought together God &
Israel in the Temple)
*4 In the main posting we review the census figures from
Nu01 and Nu25 on the 12 tribes. As can be seen, Judah & Dan
are the only tribes who had the most people in both censuses
and the keyword THEREFORE is mentioned by their naming in Gn
(THEREFORE SHE NAMED HIM SUCH AND SUCH). Rashi concludes that
THEREFORE creates an emphasis in certain tribes;this emphasis
on the tribe manifested itself in greater population later.
However THEREFORE is also mentioned by LEVI who had
the smallest population! Maharzu on Midrash Rabbah 71:5
points out that the LEVI had a big population in the
times of the Temple of Solomon. I add that LEVI is
one of the 3 remaining tribes today in Exile and hence
is numerous now.
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