Comentário sobre Números 26:40

ויהיו בני בלע ארד ונעמן, ”The sons of Bela were Ard and Naaman.” [Our author refers to a Rashi on verse 36 in which Rashi quoted Rabbi Moshe Hadarshon who tried to account for the 5 missing families when we compare with the seventy members of Yaakov’s family that descended to Egypt and who are presumed to be the counterpart of the 70 families of the nations at large enumerated in Parshat Noach as the backbone of mankind. You will note that of the 10 sons of Binyamin enumerated in Parshat Vayigash 46,21, only 5 are appearing in our verse. Rabbi Moshe Hadarshon is quoted as saying that Ard and Naamon may have been in their mother’s womb at the time Yaakov traveled to Egypt, so that their inclusion in the families to whom land would be distributed would pose no problem, is itself problematic, as are other aspects. I will now continue to let the author speak. Ed.] As to Rashi’s quoting Rabbi Moshe Hadarshon that Ard and Naaman descended with Yaakov to Egypt, while their mother was pregnant with them, he does so because he could not reconcile their being listed as heads of families, seeing only people who immigrated to Egypt are considered as such. Nachmanides writes that if it had been possible to argue that these two had indeed immigrated to Egypt at that time, Rabbi Moshe Hadarshon would not have faced any problem at all. As it is, if these two had been born prior to arrival of their fathers in Egypt, the Torah should have listed 72 descendants of Yaakov traveling, not 70, seeing that at that time 10 sons of Binyamin were alive. On the other hand, if they were born after arrival of their mother or father in Egypt, how could they qualify as heads of families that were entitled to a share in the land of Israel under that heading? This is why Rabbi Moshe Hadarshon concluded that they were in the womb of their mother while their mother traveled with her family to Egypt. If we accept this, we need also to accept the notion that Yocheved was born at the entrance to the gates of Egypt, so that she was included in the number 70 that without her is not complete. All of these explanations are extremely forced and difficult if not impossible to substantiate. We may say that Ard and Naamon, the real sons of Binyamin, died in Egypt after having married but before having had children, so that the levirate marriage was performed on their widows and the first child of each of these marriages was named after their deceased father. Seeing that their fathers had been of the family members of Yaakov descending to Egypt, they inherited the right to be regarded as founding members of the people in the distribution of shares in the land of Israel. The correct interpretation is that Ard and Naamon who had been listed in Parshat Shemot [there is no such in the Book of Exodus, I presume what is meant is Genesis Ed] as part of the 70 were in fact grandsons of Binyamin, as they are described here where they are listed as sons of Binyamin’s firstborn son Bela. They are listed similarly in Chronicles I [Ard appears there as Adar Ed.] On the other hand, we must remember that grandsons are often described as sons in the Bible. The best known example may be Genesis 29,5 where Lavan is described as the son of Nachor although we have met him as the son of Betuel, (Genesis 24,9) who was a son of Nachor. If we were to reconstruct history on the basis of what is logical, we must remember that the whole subject of distribution of the land is not dealt with only in terms of who arrived in Egypt and when, but also in terms of who left Egypt and at what age. The enumerating of “families,” משפחות, is not restricted to the ones who existed prior to the descent into Egypt. Examples are the families of Ephrayim and Menashe, whose founders were born in Egypt. It was an old established custom among the Israelites to establish family heads, a custom not as much in evidence among other tribes. It was a source of pride for the descendants of such family heads (founders) to be able to number themselves as members of their respective families. This custom intensified ever since after the Israelites settled in Egypt they began to multiply at an accelerated rate. It became a sort of unwritten law for everybody to know and treasure and correctly trace his ancestry. In view of the enormous growth of the Jewish people during the years they stayed Egypt, the only way to preserve such identities through a number of generations was to know who the founding father of the family had been. Those who were able to trace themselves back to Yaakov in Canaan did so, others traced themselves back to the most distant founding father that could be established with certainty, even if the founding father of that family did not date back to the period prior to the descent of Yaakov to Egypt. The fact is that most of the families mentioned here were able to trace themselves back to the period preceding Yaakov’s descent to Egypt.

בני בלע ערד ונעמן, the sons of Bela, Ard and Naamon; Bela had named his two sons in commemoration of two of his brothers who had died.