Naftali
Naftali ( Hebrew נַפְתָּלִי= My Struggle) was the sixth son of Jacob and the second with Bilhah , the handmaid of Rachel ( Gen 35,25 EU ). Naftali is one of the twelve ancestors of Israel .
In the tradition, the gazelle (Hebrew צבי "Zvi") or the deer is the heraldic animal Naftalis, after the biblical Jacob compared Naftali with a fast hind or actually with a gazelle (Gen 49.21). Only in the modern German and Yiddish language area was the biblical name Naftali, using the symbolic animal “ Zvi ”, given as “ deer ” (variants: Hersch, Herschel).
tribe
The settlement area of the Naftali tribe was in the northern kingdom of Israel on the eastern part of the mountainous region of the later Roman province of Galilee . The victory of Deborah and Barak over the Canaanite captain Sisera the tribe of Naphtali had a significant share ( Ri 4,6.10 EU ; 5.18 EU ). Naftali was also involved in Gideon's victory over the Midianites ( Ri 6.35 EU ; 7.23 EU ). The settlement area of the tribe was in the 9th century BC. Constantly threatened by campaigns of conquest by the Arameans (Syrians) ( 1 Kings 15.20 EU ) and was 733 BC. Annexed by the Assyrian Empire ( 2 Kings 15.29 EU ).
Kinnereth was a main town in the settlement area of the Naftali tribe.
literature
- Fritz Rienecker , Gerhard Maier : Lexicon for the Bible. SCM R.Brockhaus, 8th edition, Witten 2010, ISBN 978-3-417-24678-0 , p. 1114.