These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, together with his daughter Dinah; altogether his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.
This line closes Leah's part of the family list as Jacob's household goes down to Egypt. Two things stand out. A daughter appears in a list of sons, and the total does not match the number of names given.
The order of the names
The order of names here is not the order of birth. The list groups the sons under their mothers, and one writer finds both God's hand and the mothers' own choices in that arrangement:
H. L. RossierWe find the order of nature again here, but according to the wives. God has the upper hand in all that concerns the family of promise, but at the same time Leah and Rachel each reap the fruits of their own self-will. The order is as follows: 6 sons of Leah, 2 sons of Zilpah, 2 sons of Rachel, 2 sons of Bilhah.
Leah bore these sons in Paddan-aram. That was not a place in Canaan but the family's older home:
Morrish Bible DictionaryA farmed district in Mesopotamia. The city of Nahor stood there. Terah and his family moved there from Ur of the Chaldees. From there came Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel, the wives of Isaac and Jacob. It is strictly Paddan-aram, meaning 'table land of Aram.'
The one daughter named
Dinah is the only daughter named here. Her story brought violence and shame on the family, and the record does not hide it:
Morrish Bible DictionaryDaughter of Jacob and Leah. Shechem, son of the chieftain Hamor, defiled her. That led to the massacre of the people of Shechem through the craftiness and cruelty of Simeon and Levi.
The word "souls"
Some translations read "all the souls of his sons and his daughters." The ESV counts his sons and daughters as thirty-three. The older wording is exact. In Scripture the word "soul" carries the sense of the living person:
William KellyIn Scripture "mortal" is never said of the soul, but of the body. "The soul that sins shall die" has a quite different force. It means the person, the living human being, because the individuality lies in the soul. This led to such common phrases as "all the souls," and so on, in Genesis 46:15, 18, 22, 25, 26, 27.
The count of thirty-three
Count the names in Leah's section and you reach thirty-two, not thirty-three. One explanation takes Jacob himself as included in his own house:
William KellyThis table lists 32 of Leah, 16 of Zilpah, 11 of Rachel, 7 of Bilhah = 66. But the head also goes with his house. So in the larger list of Leah's children we see Jacob counted (verse 8). The 33 given to Leah confirms this, since the names come to no more than 32. That counts Dinah, and leaves out Er and Onan, who died in Canaan, as Scripture plainly tells us.
The sum can be worked another way. One set of notes gives two reckonings:
J. N. DarbyDinah is not reckoned in the thirty-three; Er and Onan are.
J. N. DarbyDinah is reckoned; Er and Onan are not — they were dead.
Difficulty by design
The rough edges in these lists are part of the plan, and they argue for the record's truth:
William KellyThe differences in form between Genesis, Numbers and Chronicles come from the reason for placing each list where it stands. The difficulties spring from the design, in no way from error in the writer, but in fact from ignorance in readers who misunderstand them. Both the differences and the difficulties are the strongest evidence of their truth and inspired character. Nothing would have been easier than to make the various forms match and remove whatever sounds strange to western ears.
God's own register
These names survive because God Himself kept the record:
William KellyIt is God's register of Jacob and his house... The time was approaching when they would exchange the life of one family — already enlarged in Genesis into twelve families — for the life of a people... Scripture reveals the interest God took in recording things little in man's eyes. Nature delights in what it counts great in its own eyes and before the world.
Summary
- Named. Dinah's story brought shame on the family, yet God's list names her beside her brothers.
- Placed. The list groups the sons under their mothers, Leah's six first. Their birthplace, Paddan-aram, was the family's older home in Mesopotamia.
- Counted. "Souls" means living people. The total of thirty-three only works out by careful reckoning, and commentators do that reckoning in more than one way.
- Kept. The very difficulties argue for the record's truth. A forger would have smoothed them away.
- Grown. This is God's register of a family about to become a people. He takes an interest in recording what looks small to everyone else.