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Genesis 35:17-19
New Catholic Bible
Genesis 35:17-19
New Catholic Bible
17 When her pains were most severe, the midwife said to her, “Do not fear, for it is another son!” 18 With her last breath, for she was dying, she called him Ben-oni,[a] the son of my sorrow, but his father called him Benjamin.
19 Rachel died and was buried on the road to Ephrath, that is, Bethlehem.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 35:18 Ben-oni means “Son of my sorrow.” Jacob changes it to Benjamin, “Son of the right hand,” that is, of good omen. This time, the popular etymology agrees with the scientific. But originally the name “son of the right hand” seems to have been inspired by geography: the right hand is the south, because the Semites oriented themselves by looking eastward to where the sun rises; therefore “Benjamin” means “son of the south.”
