Vayetze 5770
One Son of Praise
This week we are reading Parashat Vayetze (Gen 28:10–32:3) and I’m devoting the column to the names of Leah’s six sons.
Everyone knows that, though Jacob originally intended to marry only Rachel, he in fact ended up with her sister Leah first and had to work seven additional years to get Rachel. What goes around comes around. Jacob pretended to be Esau and got his brother’s blessing; Leah pretended to be Rachel and got her sister’s husband. That is a larger theme in this family saga which, if they are not careful, will get all their descendants enslaved in Egypt.
Anyway, there was (naturally) a tremendous rivalry between the two sisters, and part of the rivalry was expressed in their trying to have sons for Jacob so that he would love them. Six of Jacob’s twelve sons were born to Leah (not to mention a further two by her servant woman Zilpah, who became another of Jacob’s four wives).
It’s those six sons of Leah that I want to look at today. Starting in Gen 29:32, each of Jacob’s sons is named by his mother and (therefore) he’s given a meaningful name, the name that somehow connects best with her own situation at the time. Here are the names of the first four sons, all born within four biblical verses:
Reuben (רְאוּבֵן): “because YHWH has seen my affliction [רָאָ֤ה בְּעָנְיִ֔י ra’a b’onyi].” (YHWH will use that same expression twice speaking to Moses at Horeb in Exodus 3–4 about “seeing the affliction” of the Israelites working as slaves in Egypt.)
Simeon (שִׁמְעוֹן): “because YHWH has heard [שָׁמַ֤ע shama] that I am hated.”
Levi (לֵוִי): “this time my husband will **accompany [יִלָּוֶ֤ה yillaveh] me.”
Judah (יְהוּדָה): “this time I will praise [אוֹדֶ֣ה odeh] YHWH.”
As we see with many other names in the Bible, starting at least as early as Noah, some of these explanations work better than others. Presumably in the real world these names came first and the explanations in Genesis 29 came afterward. As we often find in the Bible, the story is shaped to fit the message.
In this case, the actual pregnancies take no story time at all. (It’s not that easy in real life.) Each son is born, and she immediately names him — with (as the criminal who pleaded guilty told the judge) an explanation. In each of the first three cases, what’s going on with Leah is that her husband prefers the wife he originally intended to marry. That wife, Rachel, has not been producing babies — not sons, at least — and Leah feels that YHWH is racking up points for her in that competition with her sister.
It may or may not be such a great idea to mark your sons for life with names that highlight this rift in the family: I was hated, now he will love me, I have given him three sons. (Jacob too will make sure that the split continues in the next generation.) In any case, son # 4 breaks the pattern: This time, I will praise YHWH.
The boy who is named with this expression of praise is יהודה, Judah — and then she stops giving birth. (As noted, four boys in four verses can strain your physiology.) Then Rachel’s servant woman Bilhah bears two sons, Dan and Naphtali, after which Leah has Zilpah bear two more sons for Jacob, Gad and Asher. When the other team narrows the gap, you always want to make sure you score again in your half of the inning!
All four of these sons, like their (half-)brothers, are given names — not by their actual mothers but by Rachel and Leah — that refer to their role (as the sisters see it) in the competition between them for Jacob’s love. By Gen 30:14, Leah herself is ready to take up the competition again, trading some mandrakes (wink wink, nudge nudge) found by Reuben in return for having Jacob sleep with her that night. In vv. 17–20, she bears two more sons and gives them names for their role in the story:
Issachar (יִשָּׂשכָֽר)1: “God has given me my reward [שְׂכָרִ֔י s’khari].”
Zebulun (זְבֻלוּן): “This time my husband will treat me in princely fashion [יִזְבְּלֵ֣נִי yizb’leini].”
Let’s not forget Dinah (דִּינָה), the daughter who is born in the very next verse, and whose name is not explained.
Do I really have to learn how to read Biblical Hebrew? You do if you want to notice that when Leah tells Jacob, in the NJPS translation, “You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes,” the Hebrew says שָׂכֹ֣ר שְׂכַרְתִּ֔יךָ sakhor s’khartikha — “I have totally hired you,” matching the name she will give to Issachar, the child conceived that night. While we are on the subject, it’s interesting to speculate about the alternative explanation for Zebulun’s name, given in the same verse, using not one but two hapax legomena: “God has given me a choice gift [זְבָדַ֨נִי ... זֵ֣בֶד טוֹב֒ z’vadáni zéved tov].” That seems to use z‑b‑d instead of z‑b‑l as the root of the name, perhaps a hint at the same confusion of sound that gave us Lakota and Dakota.
Anyway, Leah has six boys now, and if you look back at the explanations that she gives for the names of these six, there’s one that stands out. For the first three and the last two of the six, the explanation of the name always involves the conflict with her sister and her desperate hope that having a son will make Jacob love her more than he does. He’s made very clear his preference for Rachel — which, to be fair to him, is only natural. She’s the one that he intended to marry.
It’s very uncomfortable for Leah, of course, to have been foisted on him and to be treated by him in a way that lets her know he has never forgotten it. So Sons Number One (Reuben), Two (Simeon), Three (Levi), Five (Issachar), and Six (Zebulun) are all named in the desperate hope that maybe this time, maybe this son will be the one that gives her Jacob’s love.
Which son is the odd son out? It’s Son Number Four, Judah. Let’s look at him one more time:
Gen 29:35 She got pregnant again, gave birth to a son, and said, “This time I will praise [אוֹדֶ֣ה odeh] YHWH.” That is why she named him Judah [יְהוּדָ֑ה yehuda].
What’s different about Judah’s name is that there is nothing whatsoever in it about the conflict with her sister or the conflict with her husband. You might suggest that “this time I will praise YHWH” indicates that she’s praising the Lord for helping her in that contest. But she hasn’t been shy any of the other times about bringing the conflict into her explanation of the name.
So let’s take her at her word this time too. She’s just delighted to have this son and she’s offering praise to YHWH. (Why she invokes God and not YHWH for Issachar and Zebulun is a column for another occasion, or perhaps for 6–7 years from now on my other Substack.) This time, the child’s name is not a weapon in the conflict with her sister or her husband. And what is the reward for Son Number Four — not the firstborn son, but the fourth-born, the son whose name is free of this family taint, free of this conflict in the family, just a sheer expression of praise?
The reward for this son is that he becomes the ancestor of King David and of all the kings in the Davidic line who ruled for 400 years in Jerusalem — and eventually, if you choose to take it that far, of the messiah who will come to redeem Israel at “the end of history,” which so many people seem to be looking forward to.
So be careful what you name your kids. I’ll be back next week.
The second ש is not pronounced, but there is a tradition that in this, the first appearance of that name in a Torah scroll, the reader does pronounce it: yi‑sass‑char.