"lovely hands to fashion<br> a garland of the flowers I have gathered."" Leah Leah is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Laban. She and her younger sister Rachel became the two concurrent wives of Hebrew patriarch Jacob. She had six sons, whose descendants became some of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. She also had a daughter, Dinah. The Torah introduces Leah by describing her with the phrase, ""Leah had tender eyes"" () (Genesis 29:17). It is argued as to whether the adjective ""tender"" () should be taken to mean ""delicate and soft"" or ""weary"". The commentary of"
"the father of Bilhah and Zilpah, the two concubines with whom Jacob also has children (Midrash Raba, Gen 24) Laban first appears in the Hebrew Bible in as the grown spokesman for his father Bethuel's house; he was impressed by the gold jewelry given to his sister on behalf of Isaac, and played a key part in arranging their marriage. Twenty years later, Laban's nephew Jacob was born to Isaac and Rebekah. When grown, Jacob comes to work for Laban. The biblical narrative provides a framework for dating these events: Jacob begat Joseph 14 years after his flight to Laban;"
"from Egypt. According to textual scholars, the Jahwist version of the Laban narrative only mentions the Joseph tribes, and Rachel, and does not mention the other tribal matriarchs whatsoever. According to , Benjamin had ten sons: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. The name of his wife/wives are not given. However the Book of Jubilees calls his wife Ijasaka and the Book of Jasher mentions two wives Mechalia the daughter of Aram and Aribath the daughter of Shomron. The Classical rabbinical tradition adds that each son's name honors Joseph: Though not named in the Quran,"
"found Rebecca. Isaac and Rebecca's son Jacob was sent there to avoid the wrath of his brother Esau. There Jacob worked for Laban, fathered eleven sons and daughter, Dinah, (Gen. 35:22-26; 46:15), and amassed livestock and wealth. (Gen. 31:18.) From there, Jacob went to Shechem and the Land of Israel, where his twelfth son was born to him. (Gen. 33:18.) In the midrash, Rabbi Isaac taught that the people of Padan-aram were rogues and Rebekah was like a lily among the thorns. (Genesis Rabbah 63:4 see also Leviticus Rabbah 23:1 (deceivers); Song of Songs Rabbah 2:4 (tricksters); Zohar, Bereshit 1:136b"
"afflicted by him; then he left with great wealth and returned to the Promised Land. The story thus serves to reinforce one of the central messages of the Passover Haggadah; that the Old Testament cycle of exile, persecution and return recurs again and again, and links the observant Jew in the Diaspora to the Land of Israel. Laban (Bible) Laban () is a figure in the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible. He was the brother of Rebekah, who married Isaac and bore Jacob. Laban welcomed his nephew as a young man, and set him the stipulation of seven"
"connection is between the apparently disjoint tales of Laban and Pharaoh is interpreted in several ways by rabbinical authorities. Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer explains in his ""Hukkat HaPesach"" that Laban was, in fact, the ""primum mobile"" of the entire Exile and Exodus saga. Rachel was Jacob's divinely intended wife and could hypothetically have given birth to Joseph as Jacob's firstborn with rights of primogeniture. In this counterfactual, Jacob's favoring Joseph's succession as the leader of the fledging nation of Israel would have been seen as perfectly normal and fitting, given the customs of the time. No older brothers would have felt"
"is Joshua, who was a member of the Ephraim tribe. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants. According to textual scholars, the Jahwist version of the story is notable as having only the Joseph tribes among these migrants, since it recounts only Jacob as having met Rachel, and the matriarchs of the other Israelite tribes - Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah - do not appear. As part"
"Bilhah Bilhah (בִּלְהָה ""unworried"", Standard Hebrew ""Bilha"", Tiberian Hebrew ""Bilhâ"") is a person mentioned in the Book of Genesis. describes her as Laban's handmaid, who was given to Rachel to be her handmaid on Rachel's marriage to Jacob. When Rachel failed to have children, Rachel gave Bilhah to Jacob ""to wife"" to bear him children. Bilhah gave birth to two sons, who Rachel claimed as her own and named Dan and Naphtali. expressly calls Bilhah Jacob's concubine, a ""pilegesh"". The Testament of Naftali says that Bilhah and Zilpah's father was named Rotheus. He was taken into captivity but redeemed by"
"Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham, his son Isaac, Isaac's son Jacob, and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel, who lived in Canaan. The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua, went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through the mediation of Samuel became"
"that Jacob calls ""Allon Bachuth"" (אלון בכות), ""Oak of Weepings"" (Genesis 35:8). According to the Midrash, the plural form of the word ""weeping"" indicates the double sorrow that Rebecca also died at this time. Jacob then made a further move while Rachel was pregnant; near Bethlehem, Rachel went into labor and died as she gave birth to her second son, Benjamin (Jacob's twelfth son). Jacob buried her and erected a monument over her grave. Rachel's Tomb, just outside Bethlehem, remains a popular site for pilgrimages and prayers to this day. Jacob then settled in Migdal Eder, where his firstborn, Reuben,"
"11:26–32). The region of this Haran is referred to variously as ""Paddan Aram"" and ""Aram Naharaim"". Genesis 27:43 makes Haran the home of Laban and connects it with Isaac and Jacob: it was the home of Isaac's wife Rebekah, and their son Jacob spent twenty years in Haran working for his uncle Laban (cf. Genesis 31:38&41). Very little is known about the pre-mediaeval levels of Harran, especially for the patriarchal times. See Lloyd and Brice. T. E. Lawrence (""Lawrence of Arabia"") surveyed the ancient Harran site. Decades later, in 1950, Seton Lloyd conducted a three-week archaeological survey there. An Anglo–Turkish"
"sons; Reuben (), Simeon (), Levi (), Judah (), Dan (), Naphtali (), Gad (), Asher (), Issachar (), Zebulun (), Joseph The offspring of Jacob's sons became the tribes of Israel following the Exodus, when the Israelites conquered and settled in the Land of Israel. There are two opinions in the Midrash as to how old Rebekah was at the time of her marriage and, consequently, at the twins' birth. According to the traditional counting cited by Rashi, Isaac was 37 years old at the time of the Binding of Isaac, and news of Rebekah's birth reached Abraham immediately"
"earlier about her age at marriage). Rebecca Rebecca appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical tradition, Rebecca was the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram, also called Aram-Naharaim, and sister of Laban the Aramean. She was the grand daughter of Milcah (Sarahs sister according to Talmudic teachings) and Nahor (brother of Abraham). Rebecca and Isaac were one of the four couples that some believe are buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the other three being Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and"
"be free of Esau's domination, but God assured him that at the End of Days, Edom too would come falling down. In the morning, Jacob awakened and continued on his way to Haran, after naming the place where he had spent the night ""Bethel,"" ""God's house."" Arriving in Haran, Jacob saw a well where shepherds were gathering their flocks to water them and met Laban's younger daughter, Rachel, Jacob's first cousin; she was working as a shepherdess. He loved her immediately, and after spending a month with his relatives, asked for her hand in marriage in return for working seven"
"of a common ancestor Jacob. It also suggests that the nomadic travels of the Hebrews centered on Hebron in the first centuries of the second millennium BCE, leading to the establishment of the Cave of the Patriarchs as their burial site in Hebron. The Children of Israel, in this account, consisted of twelve tribes, each descended from one of Jacob's twelve sons, Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Yissachar, Zevulun, Dan, Gad, Naftali, Asher, Yosef, and Benyamin. The Book of Genesis, chapters 25–50, tells the story of Jacob and his twelve sons, who left Canaan during a severe famine and settled in"
"Dinah In the Book of Genesis, Dinah (; ) was the daughter of Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Israelites, and Leah, his first wife. The episode of her violation by Shechem, son of a Canaanite or Hivite prince, and the subsequent vengeance of her brothers Simeon and Levi, commonly referred to as ""the rape of Dinah"", is told in Genesis 34. Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to visit the women of Shechem, where her people had made camp and where her father Jacob had purchased the land where he had pitched his tent. Shechem"
"Rebecca Rebecca appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. According to biblical tradition, Rebecca was the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram, also called Aram-Naharaim, and sister of Laban the Aramean. She was the grand daughter of Milcah (Sarahs sister according to Talmudic teachings) and Nahor (brother of Abraham). Rebecca and Isaac were one of the four couples that some believe are buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the other three being Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Leah. After the Binding of Isaac,"
"Laban, Rachel and Leah's father, who gave Rotheus a wife named Euna, who was their mother. Rabbinic sources (Midrash Raba, and elsewhere), on the other hand, state that Bilhah and Zilpah were also Laban's daughters, through his concubines, making them half-sisters to Rachel and Leah. Bilhah is said to be buried in the Tomb of the Matriarchs in Tiberias. In the Book of Chronicles, Shimei's brothers were said to have lived in a town called Bilhah and surrounding territories prior to the reign of David. Reuben was Jacob's (Israel) eldest son with Leah. Genesis 35:22 says ""And it came to"
"Reuben, saying that God had looked upon her affliction. She bore a second son, and called him Simeon, saying that God had heard that she was hated. She bore a third son, and called him Levi, saying that this time her husband would be joined to her. She bore a fourth son, and called him Judah, saying that this time, she would praise God. Rachel envied her sister, and demanded that Jacob give her children, but Jacob grew angry and asked her whether he was in God's stead, who had withheld children from her. Rachel told Jacob to sleep with"
"Rachel Rachel (; meaning ewe) was a Biblical figure best known for her infertility. The site revered as her burial place (Rachel's Tomb) is one of the holiest sites in Judaism. Rachel was the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aunt Rebekah was Jacob's mother. Rachel is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in when Jacob happens upon her as she is about to water her father's flock. She was the"
"the competition between Jacob's wives to bear him sons. Leah stops conceiving after the birth of her fourth son, at which point Rachel, who had not yet borne children, offers her handmaid, Bilhah, ""to wife"" to Jacob so that she can have children through her. When Bilhah conceives two sons, Leah takes up the same idea and presents Zilpah ""to wife"" to Jacob. Leah names the two sons of Zilpah and is directly involved in their upbringing. According to Rashi, an 11th-century commentator, Zilpah was younger than Bilhah, and Laban's decision to give her to Leah was part of the"
"from Rachel, but Leah prayed for mercy before Rachel did. On account of Rachel's modesty, however, God restored the rights of the firstborn to Rachel's son Joseph from Leah's son Reuben. To teach what caused Leah to anticipate Rachel with her prayer for mercy, Rav taught that Leah's eyes were sore (as reports) from her crying about what she heard at the crossroads. There she heard people saying: ""Rebecca has two sons, and Laban has two daughters; the elder daughter should marry the elder son, and the younger daughter should marry the younger son."" Leah inquired about the elder son,"
"sons Mannasseh and Ephraim, who were adopted by Jacob, become tribal eponyms (). The mothers of Jacob's sons are: Jacob and his sons are forced by famine to go down into Egypt, although Joseph was already there, as he had been sold into slavery while young. When they arrive they and their families are 70 in number, but within four generations they have increased to 600,000 men of fighting age, and the Pharaoh of Egypt, alarmed, first enslaves them and then orders the death of all male Hebrew children. A woman from the tribe of Levi hides her child, places"
"Elizabeth (biblical figure) Elizabeth, also spelled Elisabeth (Greek Ἐλισάβετ) or ""Elisheba"" (from the Hebrew אֱלִישֶׁבַע / אֱלִישָׁבַע ""My God has sworn""; Standard Hebrew Elišévaʿ Elišávaʿ, Tiberian Hebrew ʾĔlîšéḇaʿ ʾĔlîšāḇaʿ; Arabic أليصابات, ""Alyassabat""), was the mother of John the Baptist and the wife of Zechariah, according to the Gospel of Luke. According to the Gospel of Luke, Elizabeth was ""of the daughters of Aaron"" (). She and her husband Zachariah were ""righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless"" (), but childless. While he was in the temple of the Lord (), Zacharias was visited"
"second Nahor, Haran, and Abram. In the seventh generation, Nahor fathered Uz, Buz, Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph, Bethuel (Laban's father) and Kemuel. Harran fathered Lot. Abram fathered Ishmael and then as Abraham fathered Isaac, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. In the eighth generation the nations of the biblical settings finally emerge. Bethuel's son is Laban, Kemuel's son is Aram (Aram of the Two Rivers or Aram-Narharaim) by whom the Nahorites came to be known as Arameans. Lot's children were the Ammonites and Moabites. Still in the eighth generation a special ""cousin"" relationship is supposed to be the ideal"
"came to Rachel's tent, she told her father, ""Let not my lord be angered that I cannot rise up before you, for the way of women is upon me"" (Genesis 31:35). Laban left her alone, but the curse Jacob had pronounced came true shortly thereafter. Near Ephrath, Rachel went into a difficult labor with her second son, Benjamin. The midwife told her in the middle of the birth that her child was a boy. Before she died, Rachel named her son Ben Oni (""son of my mourning""), but Jacob called him Ben Yamin (Benjamin). Rashi explains that Ben Yamin either"
"lay the knife upon his son, God restrains him, promising him numberless descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac, and Rebekah is chosen. Other children are born to Abraham by another wife, Keturah, among whose descendants are the Midianites, and he dies in a prosperous old age and is buried in his tomb at Hebron. Isaac's wife Rebecca gives birth to the twins Esau, father of the Edomites, and Jacob. Through deception, Jacob becomes"
"half-brother Ishmael, as another wife. Jacob lived with Laban for twenty years (Gen. 31:41), marrying Laban's two daughters and two maidservants. He returned to Canaan with his large family, servants, and possessions. As he did, Deborah (Rebecca's nurse) died and was buried at a place that Jacob calls ""Alon Bachuth"" (אלון בכות), ""Tree of Weepings"" (Gen. 35:8). According to the Midrash, the plural form of the word ""weeping"" indicates a double sorrow, implying that Rebecca also died at this time. Her death was not mentioned explicitly for several reasons: According to the Talmud, the Torah's explicit dating of the life"
"""aliyah""), Laban answered Jacob that they were his daughters, his children, and his flocks, but asked what he could do about it now. Instead, Laban proposed that they make a covenant, and Jacob set up a stone pillar and with his kin heaped stones, and they ate a meal by the heap. Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. Laban called the heap as a witness between him and Jacob, and invoked God to watch, when they were apart, if Jacob would afflict Laban's daughters and take other wives. And Laban designated the heap and the pillar as"
"his work. Laban had two daughters: The elder, Leah, had weak eyes, while the younger, Rachel, was beautiful. The second reading (, ""aliyah"") ends here. In the third reading (, ""aliyah""), Jacob loved Rachel, and offered to serve Laban seven years for Rachel's hand, and Laban agreed. Jacob served the years, but his love for Rachel made them seem like just a few days. Jacob asked Laban for his wife, and Laban made a feast and invited all the men of the place. In the evening, Laban brought Leah to Jacob, and Jacob slept with her. Laban gave Leah Zilpah"
"Benjamin Benjamin () was the last-born of Jacob's thirteen children (12 sons and 1 daughter), and the second and last son of Rachel in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. He was the progenitor of the Israelite Tribe of Benjamin. In the Hebrew Bible unlike Rachel's first son, Joseph, Benjamin was born in Canaan. In the Samaritan Pentateuch, Benjamin's name appears as ""Binyaamem"" (). In the Quran, Benjamin is referred to as righteous young child, who remained with Jacob when the older brothers plotted against Joseph. Later rabbinic traditions name him as one of four ancient Israelites who died without sin,"
"Benjamin is referred to as the righteous youngest son of Jacob, in the narrative of Joseph in Islamic tradition. Apart from that, however, Islamic tradition does not provide much detail regarding Benjamin's life, and refers to him as being born from Jacob's wife Rachel. As with Jewish tradition, it also further links a connection between the names of Benjamin's children and Joseph. Benjamin Benjamin () was the last-born of Jacob's thirteen children (12 sons and 1 daughter), and the second and last son of Rachel in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. He was the progenitor of the Israelite Tribe of"
"her maid Bilhah, so that Bilhah might bear children upon Rachel's knees who might be credited to Rachel, and he did. Bilhah bore Jacob a son, and Rachel called him Dan, saying that God had judged her and also heard her voice. And Bilhah bore Jacob a second son, and Rachel called him Naphtali, saying that she had wrestled with her sister and prevailed. When Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she gave Jacob her maid Zilpah to wife. Zilpah bore Jacob a son, and Leah called him Gad, saying that fortune had come. And Zilpah bore Jacob a"