The twelve tribes of Israel

The Tribe of Issachar

Son of Jacob by Leah · Name means Reward, or hire (Leah said, God hath given me my hire) · Settled in the fertile Jezreel Valley of the north

Issachar was the ninth son of Jacob, born to Leah, and his tribe settled in the rich Jezreel Valley. Jacob likened Issachar to a strong donkey bearing burdens between two saddlebags, a hardworking, settled people willing to labor and serve. Above all, the tribe of Issachar was remembered for wisdom: men who understood the times and knew what Israel ought to do.

Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:Genesis 49:14 (KJV)

Issachar the man

Issachar was the fifth son of Leah, born after she had for a time stopped bearing. At his birth she said, God hath given me my hire, and called his name Issachar, a name bound up with the idea of reward or wages. The tribe descended from him would be a tribe of laborers, content to work the land and bear its burdens.

Scripture records little of Issachar the man, but the tribe that carried his name took on a distinct character: settled, agricultural, strong, and, remarkably, wise. Where some tribes were known for war and others for trade, Issachar became known for a steady, discerning understanding of God's ways and God's times.

Jacob's blessing: a strong ass bearing burdens

Jacob's blessing over Issachar is earthy and honest: Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens: and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute. A strong donkey is no insult in an agricultural world; it is a picture of patient strength and willing labor.

The blessing describes a tribe that loved its pleasant land so much it was willing to bend its shoulder to the burden and even to serve others in order to keep its peace and its fields. There is something both admirable and cautionary in it: Issachar would work hard and dwell securely, but the same love of ease could make it slow to fight for freedom. It is a portrait of the steady, laboring heart of a settled people.

The tribe and its wisdom

Issachar's inheritance was the Jezreel Valley and the fertile lowlands around it, some of the best farmland in all of Canaan, watered and broad, ideal for the strong laboring tribe Jacob had described. There Issachar settled and worked and prospered.

But the tribe's most famous distinction was not its fields but its wisdom. When the tribes gathered to make David king, the Chronicler singles out the children of Issachar as men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do. In a divided and uncertain hour they read the moment rightly and led the nation to the right choice. Issachar joined Zebulun and Naphtali in Deborah's war as well, and the ancient song praises the princes of Issachar who were with Deborah, so the tribe was not without courage when the cause was just.

One of the judges of Israel, Tola, who rose to defend and lead the nation, was a man of Issachar. The tribe's picture of the strong donkey that loves its pleasant land and bends its shoulder to bear the load is not a picture of laziness but of humble, patient service. Issachar carried its burdens, worked its fields, discerned its times, and quietly did what Israel ought to do, and in that steady faithfulness there is a quiet greatness.

Issachar in God's plan

Issachar gives the people of God a quiet but precious gift: the wisdom to understand the times. In every age the church needs those who can look at a confused and shifting world and discern what God's people ought to do. That is not the gift of the strong or the clever but of the faithful who watch and pray and know the ways of the LORD.

The strong donkey bowing its shoulder to bear the burden is, in its own humble way, a foreshadowing of a greater servant, the one who came not to be served but to serve, and to bear a burden no one else could carry. And the men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what to do point us to the wisdom that is fully revealed in Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and who teaches his people to discern the day of their visitation.

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 Zebulun · The Tribe of Naphtali · Jacob in the Bible · All twelve tribes