Jacob's Children Trivia Quiz

Answer:

The book of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament of the Bible, recounts the story of Jacob and his children.

Jacob fell in love with Rachel and wanted to marry her but her father, Laban, said Jacob must work for him for seven years before marrying his daughter. Jacob did this, but on his wedding day found Laban had tricked him into marrying his other daughter, Leah. Laban then said that Jacob could marry Rachel if he promised to work for him for another seven years. Jacob agreed and married Rachel about a week after his wedding to Leah (Genesis chapter 29).

The Bible gives the names of thirteen children Jacob had with four women, although scholars have suggested he may have had other daughters whose names are not recorded. In order of birth, the first named children were Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah, whose mother was Leah, then Dan and Naphtali, who were born to Rachel's servant, Bilhah. The mother of Gad and Asher, the next two children, was Zilpah, Leah's servant, while Leah herself gave birth to the following three children, who were named Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah. Rachel was the mother of the last two children, Joseph and Benjamin (Genesis chapters 29, 30, 33 and 35).

As they grew up, the other sons came to dislike Joseph, who was Jacob's favourite son, and sold him as a slave (Genesis chapter 37), but he eventually became the second most powerful man in Egypt after the Pharaoh (Genesis chapter 41). Because of a famine in Canaan where they lived, his brothers travelled to Egypt, where they were reconciled with Joseph and where they, Jacob and their families, all lived from then onwards (Genesis chapters 42 to 47).

Some seventeen years after moving to Egypt, Jacob divided the Israelis into twelve tribes and ten of his sons were each given leadership of a tribe. Instead of Joseph becoming the leader of a tribe, both of his sons, Manassah and Ephraim, did so while Levi became leader of the priests, who formed a separate tribe (Genesis chapters 48 and 49).