Bible Strands
Genesis 35:26
And the sons of Leah’s maidservant Zilpah were Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Paddan-aram.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records Jacob’s lineage in Paddan-aram immediately after listing Bilhah’s sons and just before Jacob’s return to his father Isaac at Mamre.
The words — The phrase בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה שִׁפְחַת לֵאָה (benei zilpah shifchat le'ah) literally translates to "sons of Zilpah, maidservant of Leah." The demonstrative אֵלֶּה (elleh) immediately follows to identify Gad and Asher as the confirmed members of this subgroup.
The thread — The geographical marker Paddan-aram appears in Genesis 25:20 as the origin of Rebekah and in Genesis 31:18 as the region Jacob departed with his family and possessions. The provision of Zilpah to Jacob is recorded in Genesis 30:9.
Why it lands — The verse demands the reader complete the systematic accounting of Jacob’s twelve sons before the narrative moves to his return to Canaan. It requires recognition that the patriarchal line is being formally cataloged in the diaspora before the covenantal promises resume in the ancestral land.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid; Gad, and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, which were born to him in Padan–aram.
Cross-references
- Genesis 25:20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and the sister of Laban the Aramean.
- Genesis 30:9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife.
- Genesis 31:18 and he drove all his livestock before him, along with all the possessions he had acquired in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land in Canaan.
- Genesis 35:18 And with her last breath—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni. But his father called him Benjamin.
- Genesis 46:16 The sons of Gad: Ziphion, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli.
- Genesis 28:2 “Go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel, and take a wife from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.