Sons of Leah: Naming the Tribes of Israel | Special Episode
The Bible tells us exactly why Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Yehudah, Issachar, and Zebulun were named the way they were. Yet, the dictionaries say the meanings are dubious and uncertain.
It’s obvious Leah didn’t use pre-existing names, or follow any known grammatical rules for the sons.
Here’s an idea on how the names were created, and how they really do mean just what the Bible says.
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:58 Reuben
2:57 Simeon
4:07 Levi
4:58 Yehudah
5:55 Issachar
7:14 Zebulun
10:09 Full list of meanings and an important note
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Transcript:
Most names in Hebrew are easy to understand because they match an existing Hebrew word or a combination of words. The Sons of Leah are a different story. Try looking up the meaning of their names in a Bible dictionary or concordance and you will see that the interpretations are dubious and uncertain and doubtful. But read Genesis and Leah tells you exactly why she named each of her six sons the way she did.
For Yehudah, she says, “Now, I will praise YHVH.” Therefore, it’s written, “His name was called Yehudah.”
This special is about the names of the sons of Leah. I have an idea on how she came up with her names and it’s all in the letters.
You don’t need to know any Hebrew or Paleo Hebrew letters to watch this video. You just need to be able to spot when two things look alike. The first name we will take a look at is Reuben, Leah’s first son. And the way the screen is set up, let me show you because we will be using a screen just like this for each of her six sons is we’ve got the name at the top along with the names of each of the letters.
So the name Reuben is spelled resh-alef-vav-beyt-nun. Then just below that, we will have the Bible verse that talks about the birth of the son and why Leah chose to name her son the way she did. Her words are going to be in blue.
So for Reuben, she said, “Surely YHVH has looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me.” Just below that, this is the Hebrew that matches up to just what Leah said, just the words in blue.
And so the thing that I noticed is pretty simple. The name Reuben starts with a resh-alef and in the Hebrew, there’s a word with a resh-alef. His name has a beyt-nun and in the Hebrew, here’s a word with a beyt-nun.
This first word with the resh-alef means He has looked, the “He” is YHVH in this case. And the second word means, “he will love me,” speaking of Jacob here.
Now, I know from studying Hebrew that the letter vav just means “and.” So what this name could mean is just “He has looked and he will love me,” which seems to match up to what Leah said her son’s name means.
Here’s how this looks in Original Hebrew. This is the script that we study here on this channel. So if you put it all together, we’ve got Reuben potentially, meaning “YHVH has looked and Jacob will love me.”
Leah’s second son was Simeon and it’s written that, “She conceived again, and bear a son; and said, ‘Because YHVH has heard that I was hated, He has therefore given me this son also,’ and she called his name Simeon.”
Simeon’s name starts with a shin-mem-ayin. And in the Hebrew, we’ve got a word with those letters which means “He has heard.” And we’ve got a word with the nun which means “and He has given.” Vav again means “and.” And so this name could have the meaning of “He has heard and He has given.”
Now, if you’ll notice the second word already has a vav and it’s actually used to mean “and” already so we’ve got all the letters of Simeon’s name here. That’s what it looks like in Original Hebrew. And so that’s the theory on the name.
For Levi, it says, “And she conceived again, and bear a son; and said, ‘Now this time will my husband be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons.’ Therefore, his name was called Levi.”
So we’ve got the lamed-vav in this word here which means “he will be joined” and we’ve got a yod in the word for “to me.” So this name could mean “He will be joined to me.”
There it is in Paleo.
Leah’s next son was Yehudah and it’s written that, “She conceived again, and bare a son; and she said, ‘Now will I praise YHVH.’ Therefore she called his name Yehudah.”
This one should be the easiest to figure out because it’s the shortest phrase in Hebrew. And so you will notice that there’s a yod-hey-vav in YHVH and there’s a vav-dalet-hey in the word for “I will praise.”
So combining these two words together, the name Yehudah could mean, as she said, “I will praise YHVH.”
For Issachar, it says, “And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son. And Leah said, ‘God has given my reward, because I have given my maiden to my husband.’ And she called his name Issachar.”
So the first word we see here that’s a match is the word that means “my reward,” and it has got the shin, the kaf, and the resh. The root word is shacar and it’s the same word that Father uses when He tells Abraham, “I’m a shield to you and your exceedingly great reward.”
So sometimes you will see this verse translated as “God has given me my wages,” but it’s not really appropriate here so we’ve gone with my reward.
The next match is in the word for “to my husband” and there’s the yod and the shin. So the word for husband in Hebrew is ish and reward is shacar, ish-shacar.
For Zebulun, it says, “And Leah conceived again, and bare Jacob the sixth son. And Leah said, ‘ELOHIM has given me a good gift; now will my husband exalt me, because I have borne him six sons. And she called his name Zebulun.”
So if you try to find the first two letters, zayin-bet in the Hebrew of what she said, you will have a lot of options. We are just going to go with the first one which has the meaning of “He has given me,” and then we’ve got the lamed-nun in this word here which means “he will exalt me.”
It sounds a bit odd to hear someone say that they want to be exalted, but this is one of those words that makes more sense if you study it in Ancient Hebrew so we are going to do a little side note here and show the root for this word because it’s a bit interesting.
The word Leah uses here comes from the root word zebul which if you look it up in the dictionary, it will say probably means exalt or probably to dwell, but they’re not really sure.
But if we look at the letters in the Original Hebrew, we get a clearer understanding. The letters are zayin-beyt-lamed. The zayin is a part of a plow which digs into the ground and prepares the ground for seed, the beyt is a house, and lamed is the shepherd’s staff. So this word zebul has the meaning of preparing a house or a place for a shepherd or someone who otherwise has some sort of authority or who leads or who guides.
Solomon used this word to describe the house that he built for Father. He called it a beyt zebul in which Father could dwell.
There’s a Psalm that speaks of the ungodly going to Sheol and death He says is their shepherd, and Sheol is the zebul of death, a place that death is given charge over. And the Prophet Habakkuk speaks of the zebul, of the sun and the moon, the place from which they rule the day and the night.
So in zebul, Leah is speaking of a place of honor and respect and high regard in the family. It’s hard to put all that meaning into one word so if you think about it, exalt is not such a bad translation.
So here’s the name Zebulun which if we put it all together could have the meaning of “He has given me, ELOHIM has given me and Jacob will exalt me.”
Here is a full list of all of the names of the sons of Leah. And we will end with one very important note. No matter the exact meaning or exact method used to come up with the names of the tribes, it was definitely the Spirit of YHVH who spoke through Leah and also through Rachel and caused all of the tribes of Israel to be named the way they were. If you think about it, these names will forever be written on His gates in the City of God.
[End of transcript]
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