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Issachar
 
 
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Issachar/Yissachar was, according to the Book of Genesis, a son of Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
 and Leah
Leah

Leah is the first of the Polygamy in Judaism of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, and mother of six of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with one daughter from Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible....
 (the fifth son of Leah, and ninth son of Jacob), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar
Tribe of Issachar

The Tribe of Issachar was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was immediately north of Tribe of Manasseh, and south of Tribe of Zebulun and Tribe of Naphtali, stretching from the Jordan River in the east, to the coast in the west; this region included the fertile Esdraelon plain....
; however some Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 view this as postdiction, an eponym
Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
 providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. The text of the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
 gives two different etymologies
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 for the name of Issachar, which textual scholars
Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the Writing of manuscripts....
 attribute to different sources - one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist
Elohist

The Elohist is one of four sources of the Torah described by the Documentary Hypothesis. Its name comes from the term it uses for God: Elohim. It portrays a God who is less anthropomorphic than YHWH of the earlier Jahwist source ....
; the first being that it derives from ish sakar, meaning man of hire, in reference to Leah's hire of Jacob's sexual favours
Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which the Penis enters the Vagina. The two entities may be of opposite sexes or not, or they may be hermaphrodite, as is the case with snails....
 for the price of some mandrake
Mandrake

Mandrake may refer to:* Mandrake , a plant of the genus Mandragora* Mandrake , a pesticide for wheat, commercialized by Bayer* Mandrake , an original TV series from HBO Latin America ...
s; the second being that it derives from yesh sakar, meaning there is a reward, in reference to Leah's opinion that the birth of Issachar was a divine reward for giving her handmaid Zilpah
Zilpah

In the Book of Genesis, Zilpah is Leah's handmaid and the second concubine of Jacob and the mother of Gad and Asher.Zilpah is given to Leah as a handmaid by Leah's father, Laban , upon Leah's marriage to Jacob ....
 to Jacob as a concubine.






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Issachar/Yissachar was, according to the Book of Genesis, a son of Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
 and Leah
Leah

Leah is the first of the Polygamy in Judaism of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob, and mother of six of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with one daughter from Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible....
 (the fifth son of Leah, and ninth son of Jacob), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar
Tribe of Issachar

The Tribe of Issachar was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was immediately north of Tribe of Manasseh, and south of Tribe of Zebulun and Tribe of Naphtali, stretching from the Jordan River in the east, to the coast in the west; this region included the fertile Esdraelon plain....
; however some Biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 view this as postdiction, an eponym
Eponym

An eponym is a person, whether real or fictitious, after whom a particular toponym, ethnonym, regnal year, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named....
ous metaphor
Metaphor

Metaphor is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. It is a figure of speech that compares two or more things without using the words "like" or "as." More generally, a metaphor describes a first subject as being or equal to a second object in some way....
 providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. The text of the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
 gives two different etymologies
Etymology

Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time....
 for the name of Issachar, which textual scholars
Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the Writing of manuscripts....
 attribute to different sources - one to the Yahwist and the other to the Elohist
Elohist

The Elohist is one of four sources of the Torah described by the Documentary Hypothesis. Its name comes from the term it uses for God: Elohim. It portrays a God who is less anthropomorphic than YHWH of the earlier Jahwist source ....
; the first being that it derives from ish sakar, meaning man of hire, in reference to Leah's hire of Jacob's sexual favours
Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which the Penis enters the Vagina. The two entities may be of opposite sexes or not, or they may be hermaphrodite, as is the case with snails....
 for the price of some mandrake
Mandrake

Mandrake may refer to:* Mandrake , a plant of the genus Mandragora* Mandrake , a pesticide for wheat, commercialized by Bayer* Mandrake , an original TV series from HBO Latin America ...
s; the second being that it derives from yesh sakar, meaning there is a reward, in reference to Leah's opinion that the birth of Issachar was a divine reward for giving her handmaid Zilpah
Zilpah

In the Book of Genesis, Zilpah is Leah's handmaid and the second concubine of Jacob and the mother of Gad and Asher.Zilpah is given to Leah as a handmaid by Leah's father, Laban , upon Leah's marriage to Jacob ....
 to Jacob as a concubine. Scholars suspect the former explanation to be the more likely name for a tribe, though some scholars have proposed a third etymology - that it derives from ish Sokar, meaning man of Sokar, in reference to the tribe originally worshipping Sokar, an Egyptian deity.

In the Biblical account, Leah's status as the first wife of Jacob, is regarded by biblical scholars
Biblical criticism

Biblical criticism is "the study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning and discriminating judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources we...
 as indicating that the authors saw the tribe of Issachar as being one of the original Israelite groups; however, this may have been the result of a typographic error, as the names of Issachar and Naphtali
Naphtali

Naphtali was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Jacob and Bilhah, and the founder of the Israelites Tribe of Naphtali; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
 appear to have changed places elsewhere in the text, and the birth narrative of Issachar and Naphtali is regarded by textual scholars
Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the Writing of manuscripts....
 as having been spliced together from its sources
Documentary hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis is the proposal that the first five books of the Old Testament represent a combination of documents from originally independent sources....
 in a manner which has highly corrupted the narrative. A number of scholars think that the tribe of Issachar actually originated as the Shekelesh group of Sea Peoples
Sea Peoples

The Sea Peoples is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the Twentieth dy...
 - the name Shekelesh can be decomposed as men of the Shekel in Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
, a meaning synonymous with man of hire (ish sakar); scholars believe that the memory of such non-Israelite origin would have led to the Torah's authors having given Issachar a handmaiden as a matriarch.

In classical rabbinical literature, it is stated that Issachar was born on the fourth of Ab
AB

AbAb may mean:* "Ab" = Earthy Elegance fueled by Passion.* Ab is a Dutch language name.*NZR Ab class, a locomotive class operated by the New Zealand Railways Department...
, and lived 122 years. According to the midrashic Book of Jasher
Sefer haYashar (midrash)

Sefer haYashar , a Hebrew language midrash known in English translation mostly as The Book of Jasher. The book is named after the Sefer HaYashar mentioned in Book of Joshua and 2 books of Samuel....
, Issachar married Aridah, the younger daughter of Jobab, a son of Joktan
Joktan

Joktan or Yoktan was the second of the two sons of Eber mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. His name means "small" or "smallness".In the Book of Genesis 10:25 it reads: "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan."...
; the Torah states that Issachar had four sons, who were born in Canaan and migrated with him to Egypt
Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
, with their descendants remaining there until the Exodus
The Exodus

The Exodus , is the term used for the escape, departure and emancipation of the enslaved Israelites freed from Ancient Egypt as described in the Hebrew Bible, mainly in the Book of Exodus....
. The midrashic Book of Jasher portrays Issachar as somewhat cowardly, or at least pragmatic, with him taking a feeble part in military campaigns involving his brothers, and generally residing in strongly fortified cities, opening the gates whenever challenged.

The Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
 argues that Issachar's description in the Blessing of Jacob
Blessing of Jacob

The Blessing of Jacob is a poem that appears in Book of Genesis at .The poem presents an opinion of the merits and attributes of each of the Tribes of Israel, and so can be compared with the Blessing of Moses, which has the same theme....
 - Issachar is a strong ass
Donkey

The 'donkey' or 'ass', Equus africanus asinus, is a Domestication member of the Equidae or horse family, and an Odd-toed ungulates. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the Wild Ass, E....
 lying down between the sheepfolds: and he saw that settled life was good, and the land was pleasant; he put his shoulder to the burden, and became a slave under forced labour - is a reference to the religious scholarship of the tribe of Issachar, though scholars feel that it may more simply be a literal interpretation of Issachar's name, and the justification for the tribe of Issachar being a tributary to the Canaanite
Canaanite

Canaanite may refer to:* Canaan and Canaanite people, a historical/Biblical region and people in the area of the present-day Gaza Strip, Israel, West Bank, and Lebanon....
s.

See also

  • Tribe of Issachar
    Tribe of Issachar

    The Tribe of Issachar was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was immediately north of Tribe of Manasseh, and south of Tribe of Zebulun and Tribe of Naphtali, stretching from the Jordan River in the east, to the coast in the west; this region included the fertile Esdraelon plain....
  • Sea Peoples
    Sea Peoples

    The Sea Peoples is the term used for a confederacy of seafaring raiders of the second millennium BC who sailed into the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, caused political unrest, and attempted to enter or control Egyptian territory during the late Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt, and especially during Year 8 of Ramesses III of the Twentieth dy...

Citations