Naphtali (pronounced /ˈnæftəˌlaɪ/) (Hebrew: נַפְתָּלִי, Modern Naftali Tiberian Nap̄tālî ; "My struggle") was, according to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, the second son of Jacob and Bilhah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali; however some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation^[1]. The text of the Torah argues that the name of Naphtali refers to the struggle between Rachel and Leah for the favours of Jacob; Bilhah was the handmaid of Rachel, who had thought herself to be infertile, and had persuaded Jacob to have a child with Bilhah as a proxy for having one with herself.

In the Biblical account, Bilhah's status as a handmaid, rather than an actual wife of Jacob, is regarded by biblical scholars as indicating that the authors saw the tribe of Naphtali as being not of entirely Israelite origin;^[2] this may have been the result of a typographic error, as the names of Naphtali and Issachar appear to have changed places elsewhere in the text^[3], and the birth narrative of Naphtali and Issachar is regarded by textual scholars as having been spliced together from its sources in a manner which has highly corrupted the narrative.^[1][4]

According to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Naphtali was a swift runner, though this appears to have been inferred from the Blessing of Jacob, which equates Naphtali to a hind.^[2] However, Biblical scholars believe this to actually be a description of the tribe of Naphtali, particularly since textual scholars regard the Blessing of Jacob as having been written long after the tribe settled permanently in Canaan.^[1][2] The Torah states that Naphtali had four sons, who migrated with him to Egypt,^[5] with their descendants remaining there until the Exodus.^[6]

According to the apocryphal Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, he died aged 137 and was buried in Egypt.^[7]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Peake's commentary on the Bible
2. ^ ^{a b c} Jewish Encyclopedia
3. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia: Tribe of Issachar
4. ^ Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?
5. ^ Genesis 46:24
6. ^ Book of Exodus
7. ^  "Nephtali". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Nephtali. 

This article incorporates text from Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897), a publication now in the public domain.