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Jacob Went Down to Egypt With Seventy Souls and One Name

Jubilees counts every soul who descended with Jacob into Egypt. Seventy names, twelve tribes, one family mirroring the whole human world.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Count Begins With Reuben
  2. Tribe by Tribe, Name by Name
  3. Why Seventy Is the Number of the Whole World
  4. The Name That Held Them

The Count Begins With Reuben

Jacob heard that his son was alive and his heart went cold, then flooded, then he believed. He set out from Beersheba with everything he had: sons, daughters, grandchildren, flocks, the accumulated weight of a family that had been scattered by famine and grief and was now pulling back together for a journey into a foreign land. God appeared to him at Beersheba in the night and said: I am the God of your father. Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.

He went. And the count of those who went with him is not incidental. The Book of Jubilees, which retells the entire patriarchal history with the meticulous attention of a celestial accountant, stops everything to name them.

Tribe by Tribe, Name by Name

Reuben and his sons: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron, Carmi. Five. Simeon and his sons: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, Shaul the son of the Zephathite woman. Seven. Levi and his sons: Gershon, Kohath, Merari. Four. Judah and his sons: Shela, Perez, Zerah. Four. Issachar and his sons: Tola, Phua, Job, Shimron. Five. Zebulun and his sons: Sered, Elon, Jahleel. Four.

The count continues through all twelve. Dan's son Hushim. Naphtali's sons: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, Shillem. Benjamin's sons, the largest household in the roster. Joseph and his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim, already born in Egypt and already waiting. Dinah, Jacob's daughter, counted among them. The numbers stack up through twelve lines of the family, and when the Jubilees roster is complete, the total is seventy.

Why Seventy Is the Number of the Whole World

Seventy is not a coincidence. The same number appears in the table of nations in Genesis 10: seventy peoples descended from Noah's three sons, filling the earth in every direction. The ancient scribes who shaped the tradition understood this symmetry and built it in deliberately. When Israel descended into Egypt as seventy souls, it was not merely a family going down into exile. It was a people whose count matched the full count of humanity, as if to say that what these seventy carried was not just one nation's story but a covenant held on behalf of the world.

Jubilees insists on this framework at every turn. The jubilee years, the sabbatical cycles, the precise calculation of which year this descent occurred within the cosmic calendar, all of it reinforces the same point: nothing in the history of Jacob's family is accidental. Every birth, every death, every journey into exile and out of it is running inside a structure that was set before Adam drew his first breath.

The Name That Held Them

But the count is not only cosmic. It is personal. Jacob's joy, when he saw Joseph's face after years of mourning, is recorded as exceeding great. He had been told his son was torn apart by a beast. He had carried that grief for two decades. Now Joseph stood before him in Egyptian robes with two sons of his own, and Jacob was an old man who had just been given back what he thought was gone.

Jubilees records that Jacob called Joseph's name twice. That doubling carries everything: the name he had spoken into the dark for years, now spoken into a living face. Seventy souls went down into Egypt. One name held them together.

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From the tradition

Sources

4 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Book of Jubilees 44:19Book of Jubilees

Genealogies stretching back to… well, seemingly forever! A reader can skim over them, but sometimes, buried within those lists, are little gems of insight.

The Book of Jubilees, a fascinating text considered canonical by some, while others view it as apocryphal, meaning its authenticity is disputed. It's essentially a retelling of Genesis and the first part of Exodus, but with a unique perspective. And right smack in the middle of it, we find more of those lists of names. Specifically,

What’s so special about chapter 44? Well, it lays out the sons of Jacob, who would later be known as Israel, and then lists the sons of each of those sons. This is foundational stuff.The Book of Jubilees 44 tells us that Reuben, Jacob’s eldest, had five sons: Enoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Five sons, the text makes sure we know.

Then comes Simeon. Now, Simeon's list is a bit longer. We're told he had seven sons: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul. But here's a little twist: Shaul is described as "the son of the Zephathite woman." A small detail, but it hints at a different kind of lineage, perhaps a connection to a different tribe or people. Little details like this are what make these lists so interesting!

Next up is Levi, whose descendants will become the priestly tribe. Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Four? Wait, didn't it say four? Why does the Book of Jubilees say four sons? It is easy to assume this is an error, but it could also be something else. Perhaps a son who died young, or whose line did not continue.

Then we have Judah, from whom the kings of Israel will eventually descend. Judah had three sons: Shela, Perez, and Zerah. It says he had four sons. Perhaps one did not survive to carry on the family name?

Finally, for our little taste of chapter 44, there's Issachar. Issachar’s sons are listed as Tola, Phua, Jashub, and Shimron. Again, the Book of Jubilees counts five when there are only four sons listed.

Why does all this matter? Why should we care about these ancient family trees? Well, these names aren't just labels. They represent the building blocks of a nation, the foundation upon which the story of Israel will be built. Each name carries a history, a destiny, and a connection to the past. And even these "mistakes" point to missing sons and lost lineages.

So, the next time you stumble upon a list of names in an ancient text, don't just skip over it. Take a moment to consider the stories hidden within, the lives lived, and the legacies forged. You never know what secrets you might uncover. What can we learn from those who came before? How do our own family histories shape who we are today?

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Antiquities II.7-8Antiquities of the Jews (Josephus)

A golden cup hidden in a sack of grain. That was Joseph's final test, not to punish his brothers, but to see whether they had changed. He planted his own drinking cup in Benjamin's bag and sent soldiers to drag them all back. The question burning underneath: would these men abandon their youngest brother the way they had abandoned Joseph decades ago?

The brothers had already been through an ordeal. On their first trip to Egypt to buy grain during the famine, Joseph, now unrecognizable as Egypt's governor, accused them of being spies, demanded they bring Benjamin on their next visit, and kept Simeon as a hostage. Their father Jacob resisted sending Benjamin for months. Only starvation forced his hand.

When Benjamin finally arrived, Joseph could barely hold himself together. He wept in private at the sight of his youngest brother, composed himself, and hosted them all for a lavish dinner. Then came the trap. The cup was planted, the brothers were stopped on the road, and Benjamin was declared a thief.

This time, nobody ran. Judah, the same brother who had proposed selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites all those years ago, stepped forward with one of the most extraordinary speeches in ancient literature. He did not make legal arguments. He talked about his father. He described Jacob's grief over Joseph's disappearance, the old man's terror at sending Benjamin, and the certainty that losing another son from Rachel would kill him (Genesis 44:30-31). Then Judah offered himself as a slave in Benjamin's place.

That broke Joseph. He ordered everyone out of the room, then, weeping so loudly the Egyptians outside could hear, he said: "I am Joseph." He told them not to grieve over what they had done, because God had orchestrated the entire sequence, the pit, the slavery, the prison, the rise to power. So that Joseph would be positioned to save his family from starvation.

Joseph sent wagons loaded with gold, silver, and grain back to Canaan with a single message: bring our father. When Jacob heard Joseph was alive and ruling Egypt, he nearly fainted. God appeared to him at Beersheba and confirmed the journey, promising that Jacob's descendants would become a great nation and that Joseph would close his father's eyes at death. Jacob arrived in Egypt with seventy souls, sons, grandchildren, and their families. And fell on Joseph's neck in a reunion that had taken over two decades.

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Book of Jubilees 45:10Book of Jubilees

The Book of Jubilees, an ancient Jewish text that expands on the biblical narrative, gives us a beautiful glimpse into those moments. It tells us that Joseph and his brothers gathered with their father, Jacob, to share a meal. They ate bread, they drank wine. And Jacob? He rejoiced. Not just a little bit, but with "exceeding great joy."

Why such joy? Because he saw Joseph, whom he had mourned as dead for decades, not only alive but eating and drinking alongside his brothers. His family, seemingly shattered, was whole again. That Jacob blessed the Creator of all things, giving thanks for preserving him and, importantly, for preserving his twelve sons. All twelve! Remember that Jacob's greatest fear was that he would lose a son, particularly after the incident with Joseph.

There’s something deeply human about this scene, isn’t there? The simple act of sharing a meal, a symbol of unity and reconciliation.

The Book of Jubilees goes on to mention that Joseph, in his position of power, gifted his father and brothers the right to dwell in the land of Goshen and in Rameses, "all the region round about," which he oversaw on behalf of Pharaoh. This was no small gesture. He was offering them security, a place to call home, in the best part of the land of Egypt.

So, there they were: Israel, another name for Jacob, and his sons, dwelling in the land of Goshen, the choicest part of Egypt. The Book of Jubilees makes a point of telling us that Israel was one hundred and thirty years old when he arrived in Egypt. It's a detail that emphasizes the weight of his journey, the years of hardship and loss, and the profound relief of this reunion.

What a powerful reminder that even after unimaginable trials, hope and joy can still be found. And that sometimes, the greatest blessings come in the simplest of forms: a shared meal, a loving family, and a place to call home.

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Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 46:5Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis

The caravan forms at dawn. An old man. His sons. His grandchildren. His daughters-in-law. Seventy souls in all, according to the count the Torah gives us later (Genesis 46:27).

"Jacob arose from Be'er de Sheba; and the sons of Israel journeyed, with Jacob their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him" (Genesis 46:5). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan records the logistics plainly.

Two details are worth holding. First, the starting point. Be'er Sheva. Beersheba, is where Abraham planted a tamarisk and called on the name of the Lord (Genesis 21:33), and where Isaac received the covenantal renewal from God (Genesis 26:23-25). It is the southern altar of the patriarchs. Jacob does not leave Canaan casually. He leaves from the same sacred ground where his grandfather and father once stood, sacrificed, and prayed.

Second, the wagons. The Targum names them as Pharaoh's wagons, not Joseph's. Pharaoh provided the transport. An Egyptian king sent oxen-drawn carts into the hill country of Canaan to carry the patriarch of Israel down into Egypt. The sages read this as a quiet reversal: in generations to come, Pharaoh's wagons will be the chariots of pursuit at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:9). Today they are the chariots of welcome. The same vehicles will bend in two different directions depending on who sits in the royal house.

Seventy souls in the wagons. An aged patriarch in the best of them. A divine promise still echoing from the night before. The nation of Israel begins its long descent into Mitzrayim, a descent that will end, four centuries later, in a night of matzot and blood on the doorposts, when the Holy One's Word, faithful to the promise given at Beersheba, brings the children of Jacob back up again.

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