Shabbat Parashat Shemot - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Shemot - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  And these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt, with Yaakov

  each man and his household came. [Shemot 1:1]

The first few verses of this book list the sons of Yaakov, but we have seen other such

listings before. Why is it repeated here, and what are the differences with the other lists?

Bereishit [35:22-26], after telling us that there were twelve sons of Yaakov, lists all of them.

Our portion begins by limiting the list to those who accompanied Yaakov to Egypt, then lists

Yosef separately since he was already there. Then in [46:8-25] the Torah lists all twelve sons

again, but with differences. For eleven of the sons, it says only "so-and-so's sons" then lists

Yaakov's grandsons, but for Reuven it begins, "Yaakov's firstborn, Reuven" before listing

Reuven's sons. What are we supposed to learn from our modified repetition here?

Bereishit [35:22] ends with "the sons of Yaakov were twelve", but we already know that, so

why is it stated here? Rashi cites Shabbat [55b] that this is to teach that all of the sons were

still considered equivalent, thus Reuven must not have sinned with Bilhah. He adds that at

this point, Binyamin was born, completing the count of Yaakov's sons.

46:8 and on list grandsons rather than sons because at this point, the Torah is telling about

the families descended from the original sons, with the exception of Reuven. From this we

can see that Reuven's descendants were included equally with those of all the other sons.

We also see that Reuven retains rights as firstborn. Since this list includes Levi as one of

the twelve, this firstborn right must not be regarding inheritance of the land, rather other

rights, such as the honor of being a tribe.

So what does our verse here in Shemot teach in addition? Malbim says that it is to establish

that the original twelve sons were worthy of becoming the tribes, and that this is the hand off

from the sons, that the tribes are now the center of the story. Rashi adds that the Torah is showing

how dear the sons of Yaakov were to God. Onkelos emphasizes that our verse tells the household

of each son also came with Yaakov, reinforcing this idea of the tribes.

In Shemot Rabbah we learn of four qualities of Israel that merited redemption from Egypt,

one being that they did not change their names. Our verses are the proof of this.

The earlier listings of names were prior to or during the time in Egypt. Now our verses come

to show that as the Israelites are about to leave, they are still the children of Yaakov the

patriarch, still the beloved of God.