Judah was the first of the sons of Jacob to enter wedlock. After the
sale of Joseph to the Midianites, his brethren had said to Judah, "If
conditions were as before, our father would provide wives for us now.
As it is, he is entirely absorbed by his grief for Joseph, and we must
look about for wives ourselves. Thou art our chief, and thou shouldst
marry first."
Judah's marriage with Alit the daughter of the noble merchant Shua,
which was consummated at Adullam, the residence of his friend Hirah,
or, as he was called later, Hiram, king of Tyre, was not happy. His two
oldest sons died, and shortly thereafter his wife also. It was Judah's
punishment for having begun a good deed and left it unfinished, for "he
who begins a good deed, and does not execute it to the end, brings down
misfortune upon his own head." Judah had rescued Joseph from death, but
it was his suggestion to sell him into slavery. Had he urged them to
restore the lad to his father, his brethren would have obeyed his
words. He was lacking in constancy to persist until he had completed
the work of Joseph's deliverance, which he had begun.[95]
In the same year, the year of Joseph's misfortune, all his other
brethren married, too. Reuben's wife was named Elyoram, the daughter of
the Canaanite Uzzi of Timnah. Simon married his sister Dinah first, and
then a second wife. When Simon and Levi massacred the men of Shechem,
Dinah refused to leave the city and follow her brethren, saying,
"Whither shall I carry my shame?" But Simon swore he would marry her,
as he did later, and when she died in Egypt, he took her body to the
Holy Land and buried it there. Dinah bore her brother a son,[96] and
from her union with Shechem, the son of Hamor, sprang a daughter,
Asenath by name, afterward the wife of Joseph. When this daughter was
born to Dinah, her brethren, the sons of Jacob, wanted to kill her,
that the finger of men might not point at the fruit of sin in their
father's house. But Jacob took a piece of tin, inscribed the Holy Name
upon it, and bound it about the neck of the girl, and he put her under
a thornbush, and abandoned her there. An angel carried the babe down to
Egypt, where Potiphar adopted her as his child, for his wife was
barren. Years thereafter, when Joseph travelled through the land as
viceroy, the maidens threw gifts at him, to make him turn his eyes in
their direction and give them the opportunity of gazing upon his
beauty. Asenath possessed nothing that would do as a present, therefore
she took off the amulet suspended from her neck, and gave it to him.
Thus Joseph became acquainted with her lineage, and he married her,
seeing that she was not an Egyptian, but one connected with the house
of Jacob through her mother.[97]
Beside the son of Dinah, Simon had another son, whose name was Saul, by
Bunah, the damsel he had taken captive in the campaign against Shechem.
Levi and Issachar married two daughters of Jobab, the grandson of Eber;
the wife of the former was named Adinah, the wife of the latter,
Aridah. Dan's wife was Elflalet, a daughter of the Moabite Hamudan. For
a long time their marriage remained childless, finally they had a son,
whom they called Hushim. Gad and Naphtali married women from Haran, two
sisters, daughters of Amoram, a grandson of Nahor. Naphtali's wife,
Merimit, was the older of the two, and the younger, the wife of Gad,
was named Uzit.
Asher's first wife was Adon, the daughter of Ephlal, a grandson of
Ishmael. She died childless, and he married a second wife, Hadorah, a
daughter of Abimael, the grandson of Shem. She had been married before,
her first husband having been Malchiel, also a grandson of Shem, and
the issue of this first marriage was a daughter, Serah by name. When
Asher brought his wife to Canaan, the three year old orphan Serah came
with them. She was raised in the house of Jacob, and she walked in the
way of pious children, and God gave her beauty, wisdom, and sagacity.
Zebulon's wife was Maroshah, the daughter of Molad, a grandson of
Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah.
For Benjamin, when he was but ten years old, Jacob took Mahlia to wife,
the daughter of Aram, the grandson of Terah, and she bore him five
sons. At the age of eighteen he married a second wife, Arbat, the
daughter of Zimran, a son of Abraham by Keturah, and by her also he had
five sons.[98]