Today’s name is Bin•ya•min (Benjamin).
You may remember that Jacob, who wanted to marry Rachel and worked for 7 years to win her, was cheated by her father, Laban, who gave him at the wedding night his other daughter, Leah, instead of Rachel. He was forced to serve Laban for 7 more years for the right to marry Rachel, whom he loved. According to the Hebrew Bible, Leah was hated by Jacob, but God opened her womb and gave her six sons and one daughter, while Rachel was still barren. With the birth of Joseph, Rachel’s honor was restored by God who opens her womb to give birth to her first son, Joseph.
Rachel gave birth one more time and died during her difficult labor.
“And it came to pass, as her soul was departing, for she died, that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin”
We have two names in this verse, but the English text offers no explanation for this. In Hebrew, the names mean completely different things but sound somewhat alike. Ben-Oni, as Rachel called her son as her soul was departing, means ‘the son of my strength’ (also, the son of my vitality) with the true meaning of ‘the son that took away my vitality, my life.’ Perhaps because of this negative reminder of his beloved wife’s death, Jacob rejects this name and calls the boy ‘Bin•ya•min,’ which mean ‘the son on my right-hand side.’ If you can read some Hebrew by now (BTW, it won’t take you more than 5-10 days to learn how to read Hebrew), you may have noticed that in this verse, the name is written as ‘Vin•ya•min’ and not ‘Bin•ya•min.’ This is because of a biblical grammar rule that has to do with God’s name. Here’s the rule in a nutshell: if a word that begins with a letter that has a strong emphasis follows another word that has one of the four letters that makes up God’s name, the emphasis of the letter will be dropped and replaced by a soft sound. The four letters of God’s Essence Name are : ‘Yood’ ‘Hey’ ‘Vav’ ‘Hey.’ In this case, if you happen to look at this verse in the Hebrew Bible, you’ll see that the name Benjamin follows the word ‘lo,’ which ends with the letter ‘Vav.’ Because of this rule of reverence, the ‘B’ of the name Benjamin is replaced by the soft substitute letter ‘V,’ and the name is written as Vin•ya•min. Just an example of the deep reverence towards God that causes valid names and words to surrender to His Glory. Have you ever seen anything like this reverence in the English language?
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