Week 3 Benjamin
Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder.
I see now that I made a mistake in not including Benjamin with his six other “invisible” brothers – Zebulun Issachar Dan Gad Asher & Naphtali . Just like them there’s almost no biographical info about Benjamin. He was the last of Jacob’s boys. And after Joseph was reportedly killed-by-a-wild-animal Benjamin became Jacob’s fair-haired boy. None of it helps me make sense of the big bad killer-wolf image.
It occurred to me that with each of these boys the blessings might have made a certain sense to them personally. Maybe connections were made. But it’s not made clear to me. With Reuben (intra-familial sexual intercourse) and with Simeon & Levi (a murderous vendetta against the Shechemites) there’s an identifiable link between their actions and the blessing. But not with these seven.
I did a bit of digging and found that King Saul was a Benjamite. He could be viewed as a bit of an alpha-wolf. But I’m not sure he was the wolf of Jacob’s prediction.
So I’m about as far ahead with Benjamin’s blessing as with the previous six.
Note: quote from Genesis 49:27 (NIV).
I tried locating notable people from the other six brothers. Tola (Issachar) Samson (Dan) & Barak (Naphtali) were judges. Elijah was Gadite and the NT’s Anna was Asherite. Zebulun? I found no one. It was a long-shot. And for me a waste of time.