JacobJacob (ˈdʒeɪkəb; ; Yaʿqūb; Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Jacob first appears in the Book of Genesis, where he is described as the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and the grandson of Abraham, Sarah, and Bethuel. According to the biblical account, he was the second-born of Isaac's children, the elder being Jacob's fraternal twin brother, Esau.
RachelRachel (רָחֵל) was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aunt Rebecca was Jacob's mother. Rachel is first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible in when Jacob happens upon her as she is about to water her father's flock. She was the second daughter of Laban, Rebekah's brother, making Jacob her first cousin. Jacob had traveled a great distance to find Laban.
ZebulunZebulun (; also Zebulon, Zabulon, or Zaboules) was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers, the last of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's tenth son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Zebulun. Some biblical scholars believe this to be an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. With Leah as a matriarch, biblical scholars believe the tribe to have been regarded by the text's authors as a part of the original Israelite confederation.
LeviLevi (ˈliːvaɪ ; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and Miriam. Certain religious and political functions were reserved for the Levites. The Torah suggests that the name Levi refers to Leah's hope for Jacob to join with her, implying a derivation from Hebrew yillaweh, meaning he will join, but scholars suspect that it may simply mean priest, either as a loan word from the Minaean lawi'u, meaning priest, or by referring to those people who were joined to the Ark of the Covenant.
IssacharIssachar () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's ninth son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar. However, some Biblical scholars view this as an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. Two different etymologies for the name of Issachar have been proposed based on the text of the Torah, which some textual scholars attribute to different sources—one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist.
IsraelitesThe Israelites (ˈɪzrəlaɪts,_-riə-; , Bənēy Yīsrāʾēl, ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on the national god Yahweh.
LeahLeah (ˈleɪ.ə; ˈliːə) appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has three more sons, namely Simeon, Levi and Judah, but does not bear another son until Rachel offers her a night with Jacob in exchange for some mandrake root (דודאים, dûdâ'îm). Leah gives birth to two more sons after this, Issachar and Zebulun, and to Jacob's only daughter, Dinah.
SaulSaul (sɔːl; , Šāʾūl; Σαούλ, Saoúl; ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BCE, supposedly marked the transition of Israel and Judah from a scattered tribal society ruled by various judges to organized statehood. The historicity of Saul and the United Kingdom of Israel is not universally accepted, as what is known of both comes exclusively from the Hebrew Bible.
Twelve Tribes of IsraelThe Twelve Tribes of Israel (שִׁבְטֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל) are, according to Hebrew scriptures, the descendants of the biblical patriarch Jacob, also known as Israel, through his twelve sons through his wives, Leah and Rachel, and his concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, who collectively form the Israelite nation. In modern scholarship, there is skepticism as to whether there ever were twelve Israelite tribes, with the use of the number 12 thought more likely to signify a symbolic tradition as part of a national founding myth.
EsauEsau is the elder son of Isaac in the Hebrew Bible. He is mentioned in the Book of Genesis and by the prophets Obadiah and Malachi. The Christian New Testament alludes to him in the Epistle to the Romans and in the Epistle to the Hebrews. According to the Hebrew Bible, Esau is the progenitor of the Edomites and the elder brother of Jacob, the patriarch of the Israelites. Jacob and Esau were the sons of Isaac and Rebecca, and the grandsons of Abraham and Sarah. Of the twins, Esau was the first to be born with Jacob following, holding his heel.
