Probably from the root Balah (בלה) meaning "to be modest" or "feeble". However Balahah, read from the same letters but without the Masoretic pointing (בלהה), means "to fear" or "be terrified", and is used to mean "terror" or "sudden destruction". Belah (one Hey fewer - בלה) is used by Yechezke-El (Ezekiel) to mean "an adulteress", which may itself be a link to the Re'u-Ven tale – see below. I would discount any link if it were not for the Chronicles connection (see below for that too). There is also a homophonic connection to Bin-Yamin's son Bela, but I definitely discount that, because that Bela is spelled with an Ayin (בלע).
However, there is also BALAH = "to fall away", used in Deuteronomy 8:4, 29:4, Joshua 9:13 and Nehemiah 9:21, always in the sense of old garments falling to pieces; Yesha-Yahu (Isaiah) uses it as well, but always metaphorically, as does Psalm 102:27. Is Bilhah thus being regarded as a worn-out shrine, with Yisra-El growing from the new cults of Yoseph and Bin-Yamin who are identified with her mistress Rachel?
Genesis 29:29 ff names her as Rachel's slave-girl who mothered Dan and Naphtali with Ya'akov. Although Dan is originally said to have inhabited the coastal region around what is now Tel Aviv, his later home was in the extreme north-east, outside the covenanted tribal lands, at the source of the River Yarden (Jordan) - effectively in Ashur (Assyria), not Kena'an. Naphtali occupied an area just south and west of Dan, in the upper or eastern Galil. That they should be identified as brother-tribes is therefore logical, though it does suggest that neither Rachel nor they were Beney Kena'an, unlike the Le'ah and Zilpah tribes. Given that Rachel's children, Yoseph and Bin-Yamin, both have strong Egyptian links, can we draw from this some general conclusions about the ethnic make-up of the Jacobite clans?
Genesis 35:22 tells the tale of how Bilhah lay with Re'u-Ven - an act of incest according to the Mosaic laws (Leviticus 18:7/8 ) - who was then deprived of his elderhood as a punishment (Genesis 49:4). It was normal for the harem of the king to pass to his successor; and often the seizure of the king's harem was a key aspect of a coup d'état (cf Av-Shalom and David in 2 Samuel 17:4). Was Re'u-Ven seeking to "supplant" Ya'akov by bedding Bilhah, or is it simply a tale of mutual lust requited, the young prince bedding the au pair girl?
Additionally, in almost every case in Genesis, we encounter ultimogeniture, not primogeniture, and it is displayed through stories in which the younger brother seizes the elder's rights - Ya'akov and Esav being the best-known, but an attempt to prevent the same is apparent in the Kayin and Havel story. Do we have here a rare case of primogeniture? Or is this simply one more way of describing the loss of rights? If so, the birthright should have passed to whom? Shim'on (Simeon), as next-born? The youngest of Le'ah's children, since she was the first wife? But that makes Dinah, unless girls don't count (an important question, which the daughters of Tselaphchad answered, successfully, in Numbers 27, until it was repealed in Numbers 36). In which case Zevulun. The Tanach stories simply do not make that explanation plausible. The territory of Re'u-Ven is really northern Mo-Av, from which Rut (Ruth) came to marry Bo'az. See Beit Lechem. The Re'u-Ven-Bilhah story is in fact connected to Rut's famous decision to follow Na'ami
(Naomi) back to Kena'an - the Beney Re'u-Ven having "conquered" her shrine, where else was she to go but to her ancestor Rachel, at the equivalent shrine of Beit Lechem Ephratah?
Genesis 46:23/5 lists Bilhah's descendants as Chushim (חשים) - out of Dan - and Yachtse-El (יחצאל), Guni (גוני), Yetser (יצר) and Shilem (שלם) - out of Naphtali. But 1 Chronicles 7:13 names Naphtali's sons as Yachtsi-El (יחציאל), Guni (גוני), Yetser (יצר) and Shalum (שלום), while making Chushim a son of Acher (which name simply means "a.n.other", so presumably a way of saying they don't know his name) and great-grandson of Bin-Yamin.
1 Chronicles 4:29 has a city named Bilhah in the tribe of Shim'i, a son of Shim'on; Joshua 19:3, however, calls it Balah - whicb takes us back to the discussion of spelling and variants at the top of this page.
1 Chronicles 8:8, more interestingly, makes the Chushim a matriarchal tribe of the Beney Mo-Av, descended from Shacharayim (possibly a variant of Yisaschar?).
Yechtsi-El (יחצאל) is rendered in Numbers 26:48 as Yach-tse-Eli (יחצאלי). The name means "whom El allots", and was probably a royal title.
For Guni (גוני), see also Numbers 26:48 and 1 Chronicles 5:15. The name means "painted in many colours" which is not uninteresting given that he was a half-brother to Yoseph. The coat in question denoted a Hyksos priest.
For Yetser (יצר), see Numbers 26:49, which gives Yitsri; the name means "a stone idol", though in Rabbinic Judaism it has come to mean a human inclination - Yetser ha-Tov and Yetser ha-Ra denoting the inclination towards good and its opposite.
Shilem (שלם) is an immensely complex word, linked to Salem, Yeru-Shala'im, Av-Shalom (Absalom), Shelomoh, Salome and many others. Numbers 26:49 calls him Shilmey (שלמי). As to Shalum in Chronicles, this is probably an error borne of the fact that there were kings of both Yisra-El and Yehudah who bore that name (2 Kings 15:10; 22:14; Ezra 2:42, 7:2, 1 Chronicles 2:40 et al). The famous Syriac king Shalman-Ezer (Shalmaneser V) takes his name from the same root.
What we have, therefore, is another compressed tribal cosmology, in this case belonging to a tribe whose demesne is not easy to identify, but which has links through Mo-Av and through Rachel with the cult of the corn-god. Rachel's own son, Yoseph, is a variant of both the Egyptian and Babylonian corn-gods, Osher and Tammuz, the first obvious from his tale, the latter evidenced by his mother Rachel's shrine, the same town where King David was born, and later Jesus born too: Beit Lechem Ephratah, the "Shrine of the Corn-God of the Euphrates", which is Tammuz. Knowing that David moved the capital to Yeru-Shala'im, and gave the name Shalem to two of his sons - Av-Shalom (Absalom) and Yedid-Yah who took the king name Shelomoh (Solomon) - it is intriguing to find a son of Bilhah, Rachel's "hand-maiden", also bearing the name.
1 Chronicles 8:8, more interestingly, makes the Chushim a matriarchal tribe of the Beney Mo-Av, descended from Shacharayim (possibly a variant of Yisaschar?).
Yechtsi-El (יחצאל) is rendered in Numbers 26:48 as Yach-tse-Eli (יחצאלי). The name means "whom El allots", and was probably a royal title.
For Guni (גוני), see also Numbers 26:48 and 1 Chronicles 5:15. The name means "painted in many colours" which is not uninteresting given that he was a half-brother to Yoseph. The coat in question denoted a Hyksos priest.
For Yetser (יצר), see Numbers 26:49, which gives Yitsri; the name means "a stone idol", though in Rabbinic Judaism it has come to mean a human inclination - Yetser ha-Tov and Yetser ha-Ra denoting the inclination towards good and its opposite.
Shilem (שלם) is an immensely complex word, linked to Salem, Yeru-Shala'im, Av-Shalom (Absalom), Shelomoh, Salome and many others. Numbers 26:49 calls him Shilmey (שלמי). As to Shalum in Chronicles, this is probably an error borne of the fact that there were kings of both Yisra-El and Yehudah who bore that name (2 Kings 15:10; 22:14; Ezra 2:42, 7:2, 1 Chronicles 2:40 et al). The famous Syriac king Shalman-Ezer (Shalmaneser V) takes his name from the same root.
What we have, therefore, is another compressed tribal cosmology, in this case belonging to a tribe whose demesne is not easy to identify, but which has links through Mo-Av and through Rachel with the cult of the corn-god. Rachel's own son, Yoseph, is a variant of both the Egyptian and Babylonian corn-gods, Osher and Tammuz, the first obvious from his tale, the latter evidenced by his mother Rachel's shrine, the same town where King David was born, and later Jesus born too: Beit Lechem Ephratah, the "Shrine of the Corn-God of the Euphrates", which is Tammuz. Knowing that David moved the capital to Yeru-Shala'im, and gave the name Shalem to two of his sons - Av-Shalom (Absalom) and Yedid-Yah who took the king name Shelomoh (Solomon) - it is intriguing to find a son of Bilhah, Rachel's "hand-maiden", also bearing the name.
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