And the sons of Benjamin: Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Rosh, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard.
This verse lists ten sons for Benjamin — Jacob's youngest, still called a "lad" a few chapters earlier — inside the register of the household going down to Egypt. That raises two questions: how could so young a man have so large a family, and why does God record ten obscure names at all?
How to read a genealogy
One writer reads the difficulties in such lists as a mark of honesty, not error.
William KellyIf we truly want to avoid serious mistakes and understand Scripture, we must read the genealogies by their own aim, and not by modern ideas. On their face they plainly present difficulties. No forger or compiler would have left such things standing; he would have taken every care to avoid them. The writer, on the other hand, knew details that we may not. He simply states what he knows to be true, without stopping to clear the difficulties up.
A "lad" with ten sons
One writer works out the highest age Benjamin could have reached when the family went down to Egypt.
J. N. DarbyBenjamin could only have been two or three years old when Joseph went down… We must add twenty-two years for the gap between Joseph's going down and Jacob's. So Benjamin was at most twenty-four or twenty-five. That is why he is called a "lad" (nahar) in chapter 43:3, a "little one" (katan) in chapter 44:20, and a "lad" (nahar) again in verse 31. Even if we allow the fullest possible age of twenty-five — which those three words make very unlikely — it is very hard to believe that ten sons had been born to him.
Heads of future families
Commentators answer this in more than one way. One answer: these names stand in the list for what these men would later become.
William KellyThe fact is that the sons of Jacob were even fewer than a modern census would count. The principle stated in Hebrews 7:9-10 seems to have been applied here to Judah's descendants, and to Benjamin's as well, as we may gather from the earlier history. They are put in the list as the heads of future families. The list in Numbers 26 of the separate families of the tribes of Israel confirms it… This is a solution suggested by men who know such genealogies well, and it is only one of several. It was no mistake. It was deliberate, however far it lies outside ordinary thinking.
A family, not a passenger list
The chapter's aim decides who belongs in the list. It names some men who never made the journey.
J. N. DarbyOn the whole the purpose of the statement in Genesis 46 is plainly to give Jacob's family. So it mentions some who did not go down to Egypt, and it brings Hezron and Hamul into an earlier verse on purpose — not with the list of sons, but as belonging with them. The words, "Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude," take up the general fact to show the remarkable increase.
The names themselves
Two of the ten names are worth a pause. The second, Becher, carries a meaning of its own.
Morrish Bible DictionaryA son of Benjamin, perhaps his second son, but the first-born of one of his wives. The name means 'first-born.' Gen. 46:21; 1 Chr. 7:6, 8.
Ehi may also turn up later under other spellings, which is why later lists do not always match this one word for word.
Morrish Bible DictionaryA son of Benjamin. Gen. 46:21. Perhaps the same person as AHIRAM in Num. 26:38, and AHARAH in 1 Chr. 8:1.
Benjamin himself
Scripture says little about Benjamin himself. His two names carry more than his own story.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe youngest son of Jacob by his beloved wife Rachel. She died when he was born. She named him BEN-ONI, meaning 'son of my sorrow,' but his father named him BENJAMIN, 'son of the right hand.' Gen. 35:18, 24. He is a picture of Christ in both names: exalted at God's right hand (Benjamin), and, as rejected, the cause of Israel's suffering in the last days (Ben-oni)… Scripture records very little about Benjamin himself: he was the father of ten sons.
Small numbers, large purpose
Ten names in one verse belong to a household of seventy, and their smallness is the point.
William KellyThe time was near when they would exchange the life of a family — already grown in Genesis into twelve families — for the life of a people… Scripture shows the interest God took in recording things that look small in man's eyes. Human nature glories in what it counts great in its own eyes and before the world.
Summary
- Aim first. Read the list by its own purpose, not by modern census rules. The difficulties left standing are what no forger would have allowed.
- Family, not passenger list. The chapter gives Jacob's household as a household. That is why men who never travelled are counted in.
- Heads, not just heirs. Benjamin's ten stand as heads of the families later counted in Numbers 26 — one suggested answer among several.
- Small on purpose. God records what men would call trivial, because seventy souls are about to become a nation.
- Names that point past him. Son of sorrow to his mother, son of the right hand to his father — Benjamin's own names picture Christ.