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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Genesis 30:22 - 30:22
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Birth of Joseph. - At length God gave Rachel also a son, whom she named Joseph, יֹוסֵף, i.e., taking away (= יאֹסֵף, cf. 1Sa 15:6; 2Sa 6:1; Psa 104:29) and adding (from יָסַף), because his birth not only furnished an actual proof that God had removed the reproach of her childlessness, but also excited the wish, that Jehovah might add another son. The fulfilment of this wish is recorded in Gen 35:16. The double derivation of the name, and the exchange of Elohim for Jehovah, may be explained, without the hypothesis of a double source, on the simple ground, that Rachel first of all looked back at the past, and, thinking of the earthly means that had been applied in vain for the purpose of obtaining a child, regarded the son as a gift of God. At the same time, the good fortune which had now come to her banished from her heart her envy of her sister (Gen 30:1), and aroused belief in that God, who, as she had no doubt heard from her husband, had given Jacob such great promises; so that in giving the name, probably at the circumcision, she remembered Jehovah and prayed for another son from His covenant faithfulness.
After the birth of Joseph, Jacob asked Laban to send him away, with the wives and children for whom he had served him (Gen 30:25). According to this, Joseph was born at the end of the 14 years of service that had been agreed upon, or seven years after Jacob had taken Leah and (a week later) Rachel as his wives (Gen 29:21-28). Now if all the children, whose births are given in Gen 29:32-30:24, had been born one after another during the period mentioned, not only would Leah have had seven children in 7, or literally 6 1/4 years, but there would have been a considerable interval also, during which Rachel's maid and her own gave birth to children. But this would have been impossible; and the text does not really state it. When we bear in mind that the imperf. c. ו consec. expresses not only the order of time, but the order of thought as well, it becomes apparent that in the history of the births, the intention to arrange them according to the mothers prevails over the chronological order, so that it by no means follows, that because the passage, “when Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children,” occurs after Leah is said to have had four sons, therefore it was not till after the birth of Leah's fourth child that Rachel became aware of her own barrenness. There is nothing on the part of the grammar to prevent our arranging the course of events thus. Leah's first four births followed as rapidly as possible one after the other, so that four sons were born in the first four years of the second period of Jacob's service. In the meantime, not necessarily after the birth of Leah's fourth child, Rachel, having discovered her own barrenness, had given her maid to Jacob; so that not only may Dan have been born before Judah, but Naphtali also not long after him. The rapidity and regularity with which Leah had born her first four sons, would make her notice all the more quickly the cessation that took place; and jealousy of Rachel, as well as the success of the means she had adopted, would impel her to attempt in the same way to increase the number of her children. Moreover, Leah herself may have conceived again before the birth of her maid's second son, and may have given birth to her last two sons in the sixth and seventh years of their marriage. And contemporaneously with the birth of Leah's last son, or immediately afterwards, Rachel may have given birth to Joseph. In this way Jacob may easily have had eleven sons within seven years of his marriage. But with regard to the birth of Dinah, the expression “afterwards” (Gen 30:21) seems to indicate, that she was not born during Jacob's years of service, but during the remaining six years of his stay with Laban.