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Genesis describes the births of Issachar, Zebulun, Dinah, and Joseph with folk explanations of their names. Jubilees retells the same births, drops the reference to mandrake plants, and makes Zebulun and Dinah twins.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 30:18
Hebrew Bible
17 God paid attention to Leah; she became pregnant and gave Jacob a son for the fifth time. 18 Then Leah said, “God has granted me a reward because I gave my servant to my husband as a wife.” So she named him Issachar. 19 Leah became pregnant again and gave Jacob a son for the sixth time. 20 Then Leah said, “God has given me a good gift. Now my husband will honor me because I have given him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun. 21 After that she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. 22 Then God took note of Rachel. He paid attention to her and enabled her to become pregnant.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 28:22
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
21 And he went in again to her, and she conceived, and bore him a second son, and Leah named him Asher, on the second of the eleventh month, in the fifth year of the fourth week [2133]. 22 And Jacob went in to Leah, and she conceived, and bore a son, and she named him Issachar, on the fourth of the fifth month, in the fourth year of the fourth week,[2132] and she gave him to a nurse. 23 And Jacob went in again to her, and she conceived, and bore two (children), a son and a daughter, and she named the son Zebulun, and the name of the daughter Dinah, in the seventh of the seventh month, in the sixth year of the fourth week [2134]. 24 And the Lord was gracious to Rachel, and opened her womb, and she conceived, and bore a son, and she named him Joseph, on the new moon of the fourth month, in the sixth year in this fourth week [2134].
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... At this point Genesis brings the story of the mandrakes, believed to enhance fertility. Reuben brings them for his mother Leah, but Rachel intervenes, asking Leah for some, finally agreeing to allow Jacob to sleep with Leah one night in exchange for some mandrakes (30:14-16). Jubilees omits this detail – perhaps disapprovingly? – and simply gives the detail about the resultant children, again without etymologies: Issachar, and twins Zebulun and Dinah (28:22-23; Genesis 30:17-21). Only Jubilees identifies the latter as twins here. Finally, Jubilees reports the birth to Rachel of Joseph, again without etymology (28:24; Genesis 30:22-24). ...”
William Loader, Enoch, Levi, and Jubilees on Sexuality: Attitudes towards Sexuality in the Early Enoch Literature, the Aramaic Levi Document, and the Book of Jubilees (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 270.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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