Nadene Goldfoot
Naphtali was the 6th son of Jacob, but the 2nd and last child by Bilhah. Her first was Dan. Most children in olden days were born 2 years apart which was the time they would need to nurse a child and then stop. During nursing, a woman cannot get pregnant.
Their count on the first census of the Exodus was 53,400 men. At the last census, it was down to 45,400, a loss of 8,000.
After Joshua led the people of Israel into the Promised Land, he divided the new territory among the 12 tribes, assigning a region northwest of the Sea of Galilee to the tribe of Naphtali.
The inheritance of the tribe descended from him was in the Northern part of Canaan, including the entire Eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee and the mountains of Galilee. it was a large section of land.
The tribe was active in the war against General Sisera of Jabin, a Canaanite king who lived in Hazor. (I have a friend who lives there, ever since about 1983) and Gideon's campaign against the Midianites. Gideon was from the tribe of Manasseh, and he defeated the Midianites near En Harod using a group of picked volunteers. The Midianites were a Beduin tribe related to Abraham (Gen. 25:2).
At the end of the Exodus, Naphtali belonged to the northern kingdom of Israel after the split-when Solomon died in920 BCE. This was the group attacked by the Assyrians in 721 BCE who took them away as slaves.
Before in 743-2 BCE, the Aramean states in Syria had been overthrown and turned into Assyrian dependencies, rebellions being punished by the deportation of the inhabitants to distant countries. Naphtali was overrun by the Arameans in the time of King Baasha of Israel (908-885 BCE) , while a large section of its inhabitants was exiled by Tiglath-Pileser III; King of Assyria (745-726 BCE). He introduced the policy of exiling hostile inhabitants from conquered country. In 743 BCE he invaded N. Syria and levied tribute on King Menahem of Israel(744-735 BCE). In 734 BCE he also invaded Philistia (Philistia was a confederation of cities in the Southwest Levant. Its appearance follows the invasion of Egypt by the foreign sea People, of which Philistines or Peleset are part, and their alleged relocation to the southern abandoned coast of Canaan by Ramesses III following his victory over them., conquering Damascus in 733 BCE and seized a large part of the kingdom of Israel, banishing the population of Galilee to Transjordania. He then exacted tribute from King Ahaz of Judah (735-720 BCE) (who had appealed to him for aid against Israel and Aram"Syria") and from Ammon, Moab, and Edom. Later, he gained control of Babylon where he ruled under the name of Pul.
From the survivors were derived many of the Jews living in Galilee (N. Israel), occupied by the tribes of Naphthali and Asher, it was separated from Israel by Tiglath-Pileser II of Assyria in 732 BCE but remained largely Jewish in population in the 2nd Temple times. Much later the Galilee became the main center of Judaism in Palestine.
The 2nd Temple was destroyed in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar who also took this group away, but to Babylon. Some were able to return by 538 BCE because of the king at that time who was most interested in them rebuilding the Temple.
Jacob's prophecy about Naphtali was that he said Naphtali is a hind let loose who delivers beautiful sayings. He said this after having blessed Zilpah's sons. Jacob then blessed Bilhah's younger son, Naphtali, and thus concluded the blessings of the sons of the maidservants. According to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Naphtali was a swift runner, though this appears to have been inferred from the Blessing of Jacob, which equates Naphtali to a hind. However, Biblical scholars believe this to actually be a description of the tribe of Naphtali. Naphtali is listed in Deuteronomy 34.2 when God takes Moses up to the mountain of Nebo and shows him the extent of the land which he had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This happened before 721 BCE.
Militarism is featured in Naphtali's history. In the ancient Song of Deborah, Naphtali is commended, along with Zebulun, for risking their lives in the fight against Sisera; in the prose account of the event, which Arthur Peake regards as a much later narrative based on the poem, there is the addition that Barak,son of Abinoam, the leader of the anti-Sisera forces, hails from the tribe of Naphtali. Bar is Aramaic/Hebrew for son, like ben. Also, Barak was a ruler of Ancient Israel. As military commander in the biblical Book of Judges, Barak, with Deborah, from the Tribe of Ephraim, the prophet and fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, defeated the Canaanite armies led by Sisera.
In the Gideon (aka Jerubaal) a Judge of Israel for 40 years of tribe of Manasseh, defeated Midianites near En Harod using a group of picked volunteers) narrative, Naphtali are one of the tribes which join in an attack against Midianite invaders,(Beduin tribe related to Abraham (Gen. 25;2) who traveled with caravans of incense from Gilead to Egypt, and later to other countries.; closely connected with the Israelites. though Arthur Peake regards the Gideon narrative as being spliced together from at least three earlier texts, the oldest of which describes only personal vengeance by Gideon and 300 men of his own clan, not a battle in which the rest of the northern tribes join him.
The territory allotted to the tribe in Canaan was in the extreme north, and was bordered on the north by the Litani River, on the east by the River Jordan until it was 12 miles (19 km) south of the Sea of Galilee, on the west by the tribes of Asher and Zebulon; and on the south by the tribe of Issachar. The symbol of the tribe is a gazelle-a very quick animal. The people of Naftali is traditionally thought of as swift (swift runners).
As part of the Kingdom of Israel, during one of the several wars between King Asa (915-875 BCE) of the kingdoms of Judah and King Baasha (908-885 BCE) of Israel, the tribe of Naphtali was persecuted by Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram-Damascus, on behalf of Asa, the king of Judah, and desolated.
Again, in the reign of King Pekah (735-730 BCE) of Israel, possibly of Gileadite origin, this tribe was among the first to feel the iron hand of Assyria and to suffer the deportation of many captives (1 Kings 15:20; 2 Kings 15:20). In a reference to this incident (Isaiah 9:1–2) the prophet Isaiah anticipates that the same region will see the dawn of the Messianic deliverance. Naphtali, one of the most northerly tribes, became one of the first to be conquered. With the land taken, the tribe was exiled; the manner of their exile led to their further history being lost. One of the famous battles of the Maccabean war was fought near Kedesh-Naphtali about B.C. 150, when Jonathan defeated Demetrius, King of Syria (1 Maccabees 11:63–73; Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 5, § 6).There has been speculation that the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia are the descendants of the Naphtali tribe.
Nordisk Israel identify the Tribe of Naphtali with Norway.
Others have speculated that Pacific Islanders (Samoan, Hawaiian, Tongan, Fijian etc) are descended from the lost Tribe of Naphtali.[21]
According to Genesis 46:24, Naphtali had four sons: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. The name of his wife/wives are not given. He and his family migrated to Egypt, with the rest of the clan, where they remained until the Exodus.
Israelites who were deported into slavery and those who remained behind were gradually assimilated by other peoples. The tribe of Naphtali thus lost its identity and became known in Jewish legend as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
Resource:
Tanakh, Stone Edition
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtali
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Naphtali-Hebrew-tribe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barak
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