Benjamin ('son of the right hand'), the youngest and most beloved of the sons of Jacob.
His mother, Rachel, died at his birth, naming the child with her last breath Benoni ('son of my pain'), but his father changed this ill-omened name to Benjamin. He was the eponymous founder of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Its warriors were noted for their skill in archery, and for their cleverness in the use of the left hand. According to the Scripture numeration, the tribe in the desert numbered 35,400 warriors above twenty years of age; and on the entrance into Canaan, 45,600. Its territory, which was small but fertile, lay on the west side of the Jordan, between the tribes of Ephraim and Judah. The chief places were Jericho, Bethel, Gibeon, Gilgal, and Jerusalem, the last of which was on the confines of Judah. In the time of 'the Judges,' the tribe of Benjamin became involved in a war of extermination with the eleven other tribes of Israel, who put to death all the males save 600, who afterwards procured themselves wives by a kind of Sabine rape. Saul, the first king of Israel, was of the tribe of Benjamin, which remained loyal to his son, Ishbosheth. After the death of Solomon, Benjamin along with Judah formed the kingdom of Judah; and on the return from the captivity, these two constituted the principal element of the new Jewish nation. The apostle Paul was a Benjamite.