Tanach Thoughts

 "Pride Rock! So majestic, so mysterious, so...bizarrely named. Pumbaa, how can a rock be proud?" "Well, actually, I think it's a metaphor--" These words come to mind with the twin names Reuel and Deuel. Reuel is actually a name that belongs to multiple people in Tanach: There's of course Yitro, AKA Reuel, and then there's Esav's son Reuel, and Reuel ben Yevanyah of the Tribe of Binyamin, and of course, Reuel, father of Elyasaf, the Nasi of Gad in the desert. That's quite a quartet: Two Israelites, a Midianite and an Edomite. All descendants of Avraham, of course. Then there's Deuel, father of Elyasaf, the Nasi of Gad in the desert. Wait, what? Yup. Elyasaf's father is at time called Reuel and at time Deuel. What's going on? Well, people with double names aren't that rare in Tanach. In fact, I think that a great many mysteries in Tanach could be solved with properly identifying certain people with other people. But that's of c...

 Been awhile. But I thought I would put forward this idea suggested by my (new) Tanach chavruta: We started learning Ezra and Nechemiah Wednesday before last. When we reached ch. 2 he suggested that the list of the leadership of Shivat Tzion - Zerubavel, Yeshua, Nechemiah, S'rayah, Ra'alyah, Mordechai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rechum, Ba'anah - corresponds to the sub-groups that came with them to Eretz Yisrael: Families from Yehudah, Binyamin, Levi, Kohanim and the Bnei Netinim - descendants of the slaves of Shlomo who converted. Very interesting theory, but does it hold water? Zerubavel - Yehudah. Yeshua - Kohen Nechemiah - unknown (whether or not this is Nechemiah Hatirshata, author of Nechemiah is unknown, but either way, his tribal identity is, at least according to p'shat, unknown. S'rayah - unknown, some believe this may be S'rayah Hakohen, last KG of the First Temple. Ra'alyah - unknown. Mordechai - likely the  Mordechai, so Binyamin. Bilshan - unknow...