Naphtali

According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (/ˈnæftəlaɪ/; Hebrew: נַפְתָּלִי, Modern Naftali, Tiberian Nap̄tālî ; "my struggle") was the sixth son of Jacob and second son with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali. However, some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.

Name

The text of the Torah states 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.

Biblical references

The biblical account shows Bilhah's status as a handmaid change to an actual wife of Jacob Genesis 30:4. Her handmaid status is regarded by some biblical scholars as indicating that the authors saw the tribe of Naphtali as being not of entirely Israelite origin; 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, and the birth narrative of Naphtali and Issachar is regarded by some textual critics as having been spliced together from its sources in a manner which has highly corrupted the narrative.

Naphtali (name)

Naphtali is the sixth son of Jacob (and second son with Bilhah) in the Bible and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali.

Naphtali, Naftali or Naftoli may also refer to:

Given name