31 dic 1739 año aC - Benjamin

Descripción:

Credit: Steve Shirley
" Now, we must look at when Joseph was born. He was born while Jacob was in Padan Aram. Jacob lived there for 20 years (Gen 31:38,41). During this 20 years, he married Leah, then her sister Rachel (Gen 29:15-30). He had 6 sons with Leah (Gen 29:31-35)(Gen 30:17-20), and one with Rachel (Gen 30:22-24), who was Joseph. (He also had 4 sons with the concubines of Leah and Rachel: Gen 30:3-13.) Jacob left Padan Aram with these 11 children at the end of the 20 years. (Joseph, the youngest, was born shortly after Jacob had been there for 14 years: Gen 30:25-26, Gen 31:41 [after serving Laban 7 years twice to marry Rachel], but before serving 6 years for Laban’s “flocks.”) Benjamin clearly had not yet been born.

After leaving, he headed with his family to Canaan (Gen 31:17-21). He traveled first to Mahanaim (Gen 32:1-2), then to Penuel (Gen 32:30-32), then to Succoth, where he must have stayed for a period of time, building a house and shelters for his cattle (Gen 33:17). After an unspecified amount of time, he left there and moved to Shechem, where he bought land (Gen 33:18-20). After another unspecified period of time, God told Jacob to leave Shechem and move to Bethel in Canaan (Gen 35:1), and they lived there for a period of time (Gen 35:4-15). Then, they left Bethel and traveled towards Ephrath (Gen 35:16). It was during this journey that Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, and unfortunately she died in childbirth (Gen 35:16-20).

I mention these last two paragraphs simply to point out that it seems clear there was a fairly significant period of time between the birth of Joseph and the birth of Benjamin. How long this was, we cannot be sure.

THIS is where the controversy begins! Based upon what we have read to this point, it seems pretty clear that Benjamin was born BEFORE Joseph was sold into slavery (at 17). There are several additional points that seem to bolster this argument.

First, just before Joseph was sold into slavery (at 17), he had two dreams, with “sheaves of wheat” (Gen 37:5-8) and “11 stars” (Gen 37:9-11) bowing down to him. These dreams foretold when his brothers would come to Egypt in the future, and bow down before him asking for food. When Joseph said “11 stars,” it seems to infer pretty clearly that Benjamin had already been born (or else the dream really wouldn’t make sense to anyone).

Second, when Jacob and his descendants travelled to Egypt, it says in (Gen 46:26) that 66 people made the trip, INCLUDING Benjamin and his 10 sons (Gen 46:21). This almost certainly has to make Benjamin somewhere in his 30’s when he went to Egypt.

Third, it seems odd that if Rachel had been alive when Joseph was sold into slavery (meaning Benjamin had not yet been born), it is not mentioned that she grieved over the (supposed) death of her only son when the brothers told Jacob that Joseph was dead (Gen 37:31-35). Surely this would have been included.

Fourth, when Benjamin went to Egypt, he was old enough to eat a lot of food (Gen 43:34)."

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