The twelve tribes of Israel

The Tribe of Benjamin

Son of Jacob by Rachel · Name means Son of the right hand (Rachel first named him Benoni, son of my sorrow) · Settled a small territory between Judah and Ephraim, holding Jerusalem's border, Bethel, and Jericho

Benjamin was the twelfth and youngest son of Jacob, the only one born in the Promised Land, and the second and last child of Rachel, who died giving him birth. His small tribe was fierce as a wolf, and though it was nearly destroyed early on, it gave Israel its first king, Saul, and remained loyal to Judah and the house of David. From Benjamin came Mordecai, and long after, the apostle Paul.

Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.Genesis 49:27 (KJV)

Benjamin the man, born in sorrow and the right hand

Benjamin was the last of Jacob's twelve sons and the only one born in the land of Canaan rather than in Haran. As his mother Rachel died in labor, she named him Benoni, son of my sorrow, but his father Jacob renamed him Benjamin, son of the right hand, a name of favor and strength. So his very name holds both grief and blessing.

As the youngest, and the only full brother of Joseph, Benjamin was especially dear to his aged father, who could hardly bear to let him go down to Egypt. He stands at the heart of the drama of Joseph's testing of his brothers, when Judah offered to become a slave rather than return without the boy and break their father's heart. Around Benjamin the family was at last reconciled.

Jacob's blessing: a ravening wolf

Jacob's word over his youngest son is short and fierce: Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. It is a picture of a small but ferocious warrior tribe, quick and dangerous in battle, out of all proportion to its size.

The blessing proved true. Benjamin bred famous fighters and skilled slingers who could sling stones at a hair breadth and not miss, and left-handed warriors renowned for their prowess. The little tribe punched far above its weight, a wolf among the tribes of Israel, fierce in war and swift to seize the spoil.

The tribe nearly lost, and the first king

Benjamin's history holds one of the darkest chapters in the book of Judges. A monstrous crime at Gibeah, a town of Benjamin, led the other tribes to war against it, and the whole tribe was all but wiped out, reduced to six hundred men, before Israel took pity and found a way to preserve it from extinction. The tribe of the right hand came within a hair of vanishing.

Yet from that nearly destroyed tribe came Israel's first king. Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, head and shoulders taller than any of the people, was chosen and anointed to reign over all Israel. His reign ended in tragedy and rejection, but his tribe endured. Benjamin's small territory, though it lay between the greater lands of Judah and Ephraim, was strategically precious, for it held Bethel and Jericho and Gibeon and the ridge on which Jerusalem itself stood.

When the kingdom divided after Solomon, Benjamin alone of the northern tribes stayed with Judah and the house of David, and the two southern tribes endured together as the kingdom of Judah long after the northern ten were carried away and lost. So the fierce little tribe of the wolf, so nearly destroyed in the days of the judges, was preserved to stand beside Judah, and to share in the promises that ran through the line of David toward the coming King.

Benjamin in God's plan

Benjamin, born as his mother died, is the tribe of sorrow turned to strength, of the right hand of favor. From it came Israel's first king, and it kept faith with the tribe of Judah, from which the true and everlasting King would come. Mordecai, who under God saved his people in the days of Esther, was a Benjamite, and Queen Esther with him.

And it is from Benjamin that one of the greatest figures of the New Testament came. The apostle Paul, who once persecuted the church and was then made its greatest missionary, names himself again and again a Benjamite, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. The little tribe that was nearly destroyed and then preserved brought forth, at the last, the apostle through whom the gospel of Jesus Christ went out to the nations. From the son of sorrow and the right hand came a herald of the crucified and risen Lord, in whom all the tribes of the earth are blessed.

A note on counting the twelve: Jacob had twelve sons, but the tribes are reckoned in more than one way in Scripture. The tribe of Levi was set apart for the priesthood and received no territory of its own, and Joseph, given the double portion of the firstborn, was counted as two tribes through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. So when the land was divided the tribes still numbered twelve, with Levi outside the count. Different lists in the Bible reflect this: the blessing of Moses in Deuteronomy leaves out Simeon, and the sealed tribes in Revelation 7 omit Dan and Ephraim while naming Levi, Joseph, and Manasseh. The number twelve is preserved as a sign of the whole people of God.

Related: The Tribe of Judah · The Tribe of Joseph · Who is Jesus? · All twelve tribes