(son of the right hand, fortunate)

1. The youngest of the children of Jacob. His birth took place on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem, near the latter. His mother, Rachel, died in the act of giving him birth, naming him with her last breath Ben-oni (son of my sorrow). This was by Jacob changed into Benjamin (Genesis 35:16, 18). Until the journeys of Jacob’s sons and Jacob himself into Egypt we hear nothing of Benjamin. Nothing personal is known of him. Henceforward the history of Benjamin is the history of the tribe.
2. A man of the tribe of Benjamin, son of Bilhan, and the head of a family of warriors (1 Chronicles 7:10)
3. One of the “sons of Harim,” an Israelite in the time of Ezra who had married a foreign wife (Ezra 10:32)