Zebulun (; also ''Zebulon'', ''Zabulon'', or ''Zaboules'' in ''

Antiquities of the Jews ''Antiquities of the Jews'' (; , ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus in the 13th year of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, which was 94 CE. It cont ...

'' by

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

) was, according to the Books of

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

and

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

,Genesis 46:14 the last of the six sons of

Jacob Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother E ...

and

Leah Leah () appears in the Hebrew Bible as one of the two wives of the Biblical patriarch Jacob. Leah was Jacob's first wife, and the older sister of his second (and favored) wife Rachel. She is the mother of Jacob's first son Reuben. She has thr ...

(Jacob's tenth son), and the founder of the

Israelite Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

tribe of Zebulun According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Zebulun (alternatively rendered as ''Zabulon, Zabulin, Zabulun, Zebulon''; ) was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes in the Boo ...

. Some

biblical scholars Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse academic discipline, disciplines to the study of the Bible, with ''Bible'' referring to the books of the Biblical canon#Jewish canons, canonical Hebrew Bible in mainstream Judais ...

believe this to be an

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

ous

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...

providing an

etiology Etiology (; alternatively spelled aetiology or ætiology) is the study of causation or origination. The word is derived from the Greek word ''()'', meaning "giving a reason for" (). More completely, etiology is the study of the causes, origins ...

of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite

confederation A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

. With Leah as a

matriarch Matriarchy is a social system in which positions of power and privilege are held by women. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege, and control of property. While those definitions apply in general English, ...

believe the tribe to have been regarded by the text's authors as a part of the original Israelite confederation. The Tomb of Zebulun is located in

Sidon Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. In the past, towards the end of Iyyar, Jews from the most distant parts of the

land of Israel The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definition ...

would make a pilgrimage to this tomb.

Etymology

The name is derived from the

triliteral root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

, common in

2nd millennium BCE File:2nd millennium BC montage.jpg, 400x400px, From top left clockwise: Hammurabi, Babylonian king, best known for his code of laws; The gold funerary mask of Tutankhamun has become a symbol of ancient Egyptian civilization and its enduring leg ...

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...

texts as an epithet (title) of the god

Baal Baal (), or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power (social and political), power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The ...

, as well as in Phoenician and (frequently) in

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

in personal names. The text of the

Torah The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...

gives two different

etymologies Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

for the name ''Zebulun'', which textual scholars attribute to different sources – one to the

Jahwist The Jahwist, or Yahwist, often abbreviated J, is one of the most widely recognized sources of the Pentateuch (Torah), together with the Deuteronomist, the Priestly source and the Elohist. The existence of the Jahwist text is somewhat controver ...

and the other to the

Elohist According to the documentary hypothesis, the Elohist (or simply E) is one of four source documents underlying the Torah, together with the Jahwist (or Yahwist), the Deuteronomist and the Priestly source. The Elohist is so named because of its ...

; the first being that it derives from ''zebed'', the word for ''gift'', from Leah's view that her gaining of six sons was a gift from

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

; the second being that it derives from ''yizbeleni'', meaning ''honour'', for Leah's hope that Jacob would give her honour now that she had given birth to six sons. In

Deuteronomy 33 The Blessing of Moses is the name given to a prophetic poem that appears in Deuteronomy , where it is presented as a blessing of the Tribes of Israel by Moses. The poem thus shares its theme with the Blessing of Jacob. The Blessing of Moses contai ...

, however, an allusion is made to a third potential etymology: that it may be connected with ''zibhe'', literally meaning ''sacrifice'', about commercial activities of the tribe of Zebulun''Jewish Encyclopedia'' – a commercial agreement made at

Mount Tabor Mount Tabor ( ; ; ), sometimes spelled Mount Thabor, is a large hill of biblical significance in Lower Galilee, Northern District (Israel), northern Israel, at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, west of the Sea of Galilee. In the Hebrew Bi ...

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''.

Biblical account

The Torah states that Zebulun had three sons – Sered, Elon, and Jahleel – each the eponymous founder of a clan. They risked their lives on the battlefield with

Naphtali According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the sixth son of Jacob, the second of his two sons with Bilhah. He was the founder of the Israelite tribe of Naphtali. Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ma ...

from

Judges 5 Judges 5 is the fifth chapter of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel,Gilad, ElonWho Really Wrote the Biblical Books of Kings and the Prophets? '' ...

's ''Song of

Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (, ''Dəḇōrā'') was a prophetess of Judaism, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, and the only female judge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Many scholars contend that the phrase, "a woman of Lap ...

and

Barak Barak ( or ; ; Tiberian Hebrew: '' Bārāq''; "lightning") was a ruler of Ancient Israel. As military commander in the biblical Book of Judges, Barak, with Deborah, from the Tribe of Ephraim, the prophet and fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israe ...

'': "Zebulun is a people who exposed its soul to death, Naphtali also -- on high places of the field."

Druze

In the

Druze The Druze ( ; , ' or ', , '), who Endonym and exonym, call themselves al-Muwaḥḥidūn (), are an Arabs, Arab Eastern esotericism, esoteric Religious denomination, religious group from West Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic ...

faith, the prophet Sabalan is often identified with Zebulun. Sabalan's Tomb is located in the village

Hurfeish Hurfeish (; ; lit. " milk thistle"Vilnay, 1964, p501/ref> or possibly from "snake" Palmer, 1881, p72/ref>) is a Druze town in the Northern District of Israel. In it had a population of . History The town is situated on an ancient site, where m ...

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Founders of biblical tribes Children of Jacob Tribe of Zebulun Prophets in the Druze faith