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Zebulun (also Zebulon, Zabulon or Zaboules, 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....
: ???????? or ???????? or ?????????, Tiberian Hebrew , Standard Hebrew , commonly ?????? Zvulun in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
) was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers
Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers, , is the fourth book of the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Old Testament. In the Greek language Septuagint it is called Arithmoi, or Numbers....
, the sixth 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....
, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Zebulun
Tribe of Zebulun

The Tribe of Zebulun was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was at the southern end of the Galilee, with its eastern border being the Sea of Galilee, the western border being the Mediterranean Sea, the south being bordered by the Tribe of Issachar, and the north by Tribe of Asher on the western side and Tribe of...
. 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...
 believe this to be 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.






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Zebulun (also Zebulon, Zabulon or Zaboules, 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....
: ???????? or ???????? or ?????????, Tiberian Hebrew , Standard Hebrew , commonly ?????? Zvulun in Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
) was, according to the Books of Genesis and Numbers
Book of Numbers

The Book of Numbers, , is the fourth book of the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Old Testament. In the Greek language Septuagint it is called Arithmoi, or Numbers....
, the sixth 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....
, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Zebulun
Tribe of Zebulun

The Tribe of Zebulun was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was at the southern end of the Galilee, with its eastern border being the Sea of Galilee, the western border being the Mediterranean Sea, the south being bordered by the Tribe of Issachar, and the north by Tribe of Asher on the western side and Tribe of...
. 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...
 believe this to be 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. With Leah as a matriarch, 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...
 believe the tribe to have been regarded by the text's authors as a part of the original Israelite confederation.

The name is derived from the Northwest Semitic root zbl, common in 2nd millennium BC Ugaritic texts as an epithet (title) of the god Baal
Baal

Ba'al is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant, cognate to East Semitic Bel ....
, as well as in Phoenician and (frequently) in biblical Hebrew in personal names.

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 Zebulun, 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 zebed, the word for gift, in reference to Leah's view that her gaining of six sons was a gift from God
El (god)

is the Northwest Semitic languages word for "deity" , cognate to Arabic and Akkadian .In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, El or Il was the supreme god, the father of humankind and all creatures and the husband of the Goddess Asherah as attested in the tablets of Ugarit....
; the second being that it derives from yizbeleni, meaning honour, in reference to Leah's hope that Jacob would give her honour now that she had given birth to six sons. In Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. In form it is a set of three sermons delivered by Moses reviewing the previous forty years of wandering in the wilderness; its central element is a detailed law-code by which the Children of Israel are to live in the Promised Land....
, however an allusion is made to a third potential etymology - that it may be connected with zibhe, literally meaning sacrifice, in reference to commercial activities of the tribe of Zebulun - a commercial agreement made at Mount Tabor
Mount Tabor

Mount Tabor may refer to the following:...
 between the tribe of Zebulun and a group of non-Israelites was referred to as zibhe-tzedek, literally meaning sacrifice to justice or sacrifice to Tzedek
Tzedek

Tzedek is the Hebrew word for righteousness and justice. It is written in the Torah "Justice, Justice, Thou shalt pursue." ??? ??? ????? [Deut. 16.20]...
.

The Torah states that Zebulun had three sons - Sered, Elon
Elon

In the Bible, Elon was a Judge of Israel.He followed Ibzan and was succeeded by Abdon. It is said that he was from the Tribe of Zebulun, led Israel for ten years, and was buried in Ajalon in Zebulon....
, and Jahleel - each the eponymous founder of a clan. Beyond this, there is little other reference to Zebulun.

The Tomb of Zebulun is located in Sidon, Lebanon. In the past, towards the end of Iyyar, Jews from the most distant parts of Palestine would make a pilgrimage to this tomb.

See also


  • Tribe of Zebulun
    Tribe of Zebulun

    The Tribe of Zebulun was one of the Israelites. At its height, the territory it occupied was at the southern end of the Galilee, with its eastern border being the Sea of Galilee, the western border being the Mediterranean Sea, the south being bordered by the Tribe of Issachar, and the north by Tribe of Asher on the western side and Tribe of...


Citations