Benjamin

Benjamin was the youngest son of Jacob by his wife, Rachel. It is also the name of the tribe descented from him. Two, possibly three, other persons of the same name is also mentioned in the OT.

Benjamin the Persons

1) Benjamin was the second son born to Rachel, who had remained barren most of her life until she gave birth to Joseph (Gen 30:24). While all the other sons of Jacob were born in Paddam-Aram, Benjamin alone was born in Canaan. His was a difficult birth and his mother had named him originally Ben-Oni, meaning "son of my trouble," just before she died. Jacob, however, didn't think it a good idea and changed his name to Benjamin, which means "son of my right hand" or "son of the south" (he was born in southern Palesine; the name as a label for southerners was a rather common one in the Ancient Near East, as opposed to "sons of the left" for northerners).

Jacob was a man who was not afraid to show his favouratism, which he first showered upon his other son by Rachel (who was, of his two wives, also his favourite), Joseph. After he 'lost' Joseph (who his other sons sold off into Egypt), Jacob shown on Benjamen with the same preferential treatment. When the famine became so severe the sons had to be sent to Egypt to buy grains, Jacob refused to allow Benjamin on the journey "becaue he was afraid that harm might come to him" (Gen 42:4). Joseph, who had already recognized his brothers, however, asked for their "youngest brother" to be sent as evidence that they were not spies, part of his plot to (and that would) bring the family in reconciliation again. We hear no more of Benjamin again except that, in his last words to his sons, Jacob called him "a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder" (Gen 49:27).

2) The son of Jediael listed as a descendants of the same tribe (1 Chron 7:10). 8:1 reports his as the father of three sons, otherwise we know nothing else about him.

3) One of the returnees from the Babylonian exile who is reported in Ezr 1:32 as having married a foreign wive. It is probable that he may be the same person reported as having participated in the rebuilding, and subsequent dedication, of the walls of Jerusalem under Nehemiah (Neh 3:23; 12:34).

Benjamin the Tribe

The descendants of Benjamin numbered ten when Jacob and the family left Canaan for Egypt (Gen 46:21). By the time of the second census, which consisted of all those who were children when Israel left Egypt and those who were born during the years of wandering in the wilderness, Benjamin ranked seventh in the number of their descendants. In the Promised Land, their allocation placed them between Ephraim and Judah, which originally included the hill of Jus, which would later become Jerusalem.

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From them issued a number of persons who played notable roles in the history of the nation and the kingdom of God. These include the judge Ehud (Judg 3:12-30), Saul, Israel's first king (1 Sam 9-31), and Paul, the apostle (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5). Whether any of them may be described as a "a ravenous wolf," as Jacob predicted Benjamin to be, it is certainly a fit description of their character as reflected in the incident of the Levite whose concubine some of their members outraged in Gibeah (Judg 19). When the rest of the tribes asked the tribe to surrender the culprits responsible for the hideous crime, they refused, which led to a mini-civil war in which the tribe was nearly extirpated. It was the incident that the author of the book of Judges chose to close his book. His point could not be missed in the way he framed the book, opening the story with the remark that "in those days Israel had no king" and concluding it with the remark that "in those days Israel had no king and everyone did as he saw fit" (19:1; 21:25).