Issachar

Issachar is at once a person and a people. The name first attaches to Leah's fifth son, born in the rivalry over Jacob's affections, and then carries forward as the fourth-drawn tribe in the Canaan allotment, a contributor to the host that fights Sisera, and one of the northern tribes still answering an invitation to keep Passover in Hezekiah's reform. The material is grouped in two senses, the patriarch and the tribe, and the verses cited there frame the prose movements below.

The Son of Leah

Issachar is named at origin in a wages-from-God saying: "And Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I gave my slave to my husband: and she named him Issachar" (Gen 30:18). The naming is anchored to Leah's declaration of divine recompense after she gave her slave to Jacob. In the family roster at the close of the Paddan-aram sojourn, Issachar appears fifth among Leah's six sons: "The sons of Leah: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun" (Gen 35:23). The order is preserved when the migration to Egypt is rehearsed: "Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin" (Ex 1:3), and again in the opening genealogy of Chronicles: "These are the sons of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun" (1 Chr 2:1).

Jacob's Oracle

Jacob's deathbed oracle gives Issachar an animal-metaphor and a settlement-posture: "Issachar is a strong donkey, Couching down between the sheepfolds: And he saw a resting-place that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And became slave labor" (Gen 49:14-15). The donkey-figure fixes the son as a burden-bearer; the couching-between-the-sheepfolds clause sets him among pastoral enclosures; the resting-place / pleasant-land sequence moves the oracle from animal posture to territorial commendation; and the closing line ("became slave labor") names the cost.

Sinai Census and Encampment

In the wilderness numbering, Issachar's military strength is registered alongside its place in the camp. The first census reports the tribe's count: "Of the sons of Issachar, their generations, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all who were able to go forth to war; those who were numbered of them, of the tribe of Issachar, were fifty and four thousand and four hundred" (Num 1:28-29). Their station is fixed beside Judah on the east side of the camp: "And those who encamp next to him will be the tribe of Issachar: and the prince of the sons of Issachar will be Nethanel the son of Zuar. And his host, and those who were numbered of it, were fifty and four thousand and four hundred" (Num 2:5-6), with Judah's standard set "on the east side toward the sunrising" (Num 2:3). When the camp moves, the order matches the encampment: "And in the first [place] the standard of the camp of the sons of Judah set forward according to their hosts ... And over the host of the tribe of the sons of Issachar was Nethanel the son of Zuar" (Num 10:14-15).

Plains of Moab

The second census, taken on the plains of Moab, registers a higher count: "These are the families of Issachar according to those who were numbered of them, threescore and four thousand and three hundred" (Num 26:25). The figure raises the tribe's reckoned strength from the Sinai number to about sixty-four thousand by the second numbering.

Moses' Blessing

Moses' farewell blessing pairs Issachar with his neighbor-tribe Zebulun: "And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out; And, Issachar, in your tents. They will call the peoples to the mountain; There they will offer sacrifices of righteousness: For they will suck the abundance of the seas, And the hidden treasures of the sand" (Deut 33:18-19). The going-out / in-your-tents pairing distributes movement to Zebulun and settled life to Issachar; the joint subject of the second couplet ("they") binds the two tribes together in a shared liturgical and economic vocation.

Allotment in Canaan

The Joshua distribution draws the fourth lot for Issachar: "The fourth lot came out for Issachar, even for the sons of Issachar according to their families. And their border was to Jezreel, and Chesulloth, and Shunem, and Hapharaim, and Shion, and Anaharath, and Rabbith, and Kishion, and Ebez, and Remeth, and Engannim, and En-haddah, and Beth-pazzez, and the border reached to Tabor, and Shahazumah, and Beth-shemesh; and the goings out of their border were at the Jordan: sixteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the sons of Issachar according to their families, the cities with their villages" (Josh 19:17-23). The for-Issachar phrase assigns the territory; the according-to-their-families clause binds the allotment to kin-subdivisions; and the city-list with its closing tally gives the inheritance a fixed shape of sixteen named cities reaching from the Jezreel valley to the Jordan.

Deborah's War

In the Song of Deborah, Issachar's princes stand with the prophetess and her general: "And the princes in Issachar were with Deborah; As was Issachar, so was Barak; Into the valley they rushed forth at his feet. By the watercourses of Reuben, There were great resolves of heart" (Judg 5:15). The princes-with-Deborah clause and the as-Issachar-so-was-Barak parallel attach the tribe to the campaign against Sisera; the rushed-forth-at-his-feet line sets the tribal contribution at the foot of Barak's advance.

Chronicler's Roster

The Chronicler keeps a longer house-by-house record. The opening census of Issachar's clans names the founding sons and counts the heads-of-fathers'-houses in the days of David: "And of the sons of Issachar: Tola, and Puah, Jashub, and Shimron, four. And the sons of Tola: Uzzi, and Rephaiah, and Jeriel, and Jahmai, and Ibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their fathers' houses, [to wit,] of Tola; mighty men of valor in their generations: their number in the days of David was two and twenty thousand and six hundred ... And their brothers among all the families of Issachar, mighty men of valor, reckoned in all by genealogy, were 87,000" (1 Chr 7:1-2,5). The four-named founders set the clan structure; the two-and-twenty-thousand figure is the in-the-days-of-David count for Tola's branch; the eighty-seven-thousand figure is the all-Issachar-by-genealogy total.

Joining David, and the Reading of the Times

When tribes gather to David at Hebron, Issachar is given a distinctive characterization: "And of the sons of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brothers were at their word" (1 Chr 12:32). The understanding-of-the-times phrase and the to-know-what-Israel-ought-to-do clause give the tribe a discerning function in the politics of the transfer; the two-hundred-heads / brothers-at-their-word structure shows the wider clan following the heads' counsel. Provisions follow as well: "Moreover those who were near to them, [even] as far as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali, brought bread on donkeys, and on camels, and on mules, and on oxen, victuals of meal, cakes of figs, and clusters of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance: for there was joy in Israel" (1 Chr 12:40).

Hezekiah's Passover

After the division of the kingdom, Issachar surfaces again in the southern record at Hezekiah's Passover, named among the northern tribes whose pilgrims came up unprepared but were covered by the king's prayer: "For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, The good Yahweh pardon everyone" (2 Chr 30:18). The Ephraim / Manasseh / Issachar / Zebulun grouping carries the four northern tribes into the Jerusalem feast under Hezekiah's intercession.