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'Naphtali' () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Jacob and Bilhah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali; however Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation^[1]. The text of the Torah argues that the name of ''Naphtali'' refers to the struggle between Rachel and Leah for the favours of Jacob; Bilhah was the ''handmaid'' of Rachel, who had thought herself to be infertile, and had persuaded Jacob to have a child with Bilhah as a proxy for having one with herself.
In the Biblical account, Bilhah's status as a ''handmaid'', rather than an actual wife of Jacob, is regarded by biblical scholars as indicating that the authors saw the tribe of Naphtali as being not of entirely Israelite origin^[2]; this may have been the result of a typographic error, as the names of ''Naphtali'' and ''Issachar'' appear to have changed places elsewhere in the text^[3], and the birth narrative of Naphtali and Issachar is regarded by textual scholars as having been spliced together from its sources in a manner which has highly corrupted the narrative^[4][1].
According to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Naphtali was a swift runner, though this appears to have been inferred from the Blessing of Jacob, which equates Naphtali to a hind^[2]. However, Biblical scholars believe this to actually be a description of the tribe of Naphtali, particularly since textual scholars regard the Blessing of Jacob as having been written long after the tribe settled permanently in Canaan^[2][1]. The Torah states that Naphtali had four sons, who migrated with him to Egypt^[9], with their descendants remaining there until the Exodus^[10].

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See also

References

See also

★ Tribe of Naphtali

References

1. ''Peake's commentary on the Bible''
2. ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
3. ''Jewish Encyclopedia'', ''Tribe of Issachar''
4. Richard Elliott Friedman, ''Who Wrote the Bible?''
5. ''Peake's commentary on the Bible''
6. ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
7. ''Jewish Encyclopedia''
8. ''Peake's commentary on the Bible''
9. Genesis 46:24
10. ''book of Exodus''


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