Thursday, January 18, 2018

time - How did Jacob manage to have 12 children in 7 years?


Did Leah manage to have 6 sons and 1 daughter in the space of 7 years or was it over a longer period of time?


In general it seems difficult to fit all of Ya'akov's children into a 7 year period. Seeing as the other wives don't start giving birth till Yehuda is born and the first 4 children all come from Leah, how do they manage to have the other 8 kids in 3/4 years?


UPDATE:


And to add greater force to the question:




Now it is not difficult to understand how Jacob could have had twelve children in seven years from four different women. No doubt a number of the children could have been born contemporaneously. However, it is amazing to read that Leah gave birth to seven of the twelve children which were born at that time. Of course, there is nothing biologically impossible about having seven children in seven years, but the real problem arises when we learn that during that seven year period, "Leah saw that she left off bearing, so she took Zilpah her handmaid, and gave her to Jacob to wife. And Zilpah, Leah's handmaid, bare Jacob a son. And Leah said, 'Fortunate!' and she called his name Gad. And Zilpah Leah's handmaid bear Jacob a second son. And Leah said, 'Happy am I!' For the daughters will call me happy! and she called his name Asher" (Gen. 30:9-13). How could Leah have borne seven children and have had a barren period in which her handmaid bore two children, all in seven years?



This quote is from: https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/01-genesis/text/articles-books/zimmerman-jacobchronology-gtj.pdf




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