Reuben, Jacob's Firstborn

Firstborn of Israel and Leah

Reuben is the first son of Israel and Leah, a son of Jacob living in the era of the patriarchs, around 1996 BC to 1635 BC (era placed on Ussher's chronology, 1650). His name first appears at Genesis 29:32, and it is still standing in the last book of the Bible. Genesis says it plainly: "Now the sons of Jacob were twelve. The sons of Leah: Reuben (Jacob's firstborn), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun" (Genesis 35:23). One thing worth knowing before we begin: the name Reuben also belongs to a tribe and to a stretch of land, so most of the eighty-six verses that carry it are not about the man at all. Of forty-five passages, twenty-five are in Joshua and twenty in Numbers, where it is the tribe that acts.

The name at the head of the lists

Reuben stands first wherever the sons are counted: at the head of Leah's sons in Genesis 35:23, at the head of those who went into Egypt in Genesis 46:8, and again in Exodus 1:2, Exodus 6:14 and 1 Chronicles 2:1. He is also mentioned at Genesis 30:14, Genesis 48:5, Genesis 49:3, 1 Chronicles 5:1 and 1 Chronicles 5:3. Being named first is his most frequent role in Scripture, and it is not a small one; the firstborn heads the house.

A word spoken at the pit

The man himself speaks in Genesis 37. His brothers have someone in their hands, and Reuben intervenes: "Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand, and said, 'Let's not take his life.' Reuben said to them, 'Shed no blood. Throw him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him'" (Genesis 37:21-22). The verses add why he said it, "that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father." The quoted lines do not name the brother; the passage says only "him." What is clear is that the eldest used his voice against bloodshed, and that his plan was rescue, not merely delay. He appears again in Genesis 37:29, Genesis 42:22 and Genesis 42:37, though those verses are not quoted here.

Four sons into Egypt

When the family goes down to Egypt, Reuben's household is listed: "These are the names of the children of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons: Reuben, Jacob's firstborn. The sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi" (Genesis 46:8-9). Four sons, and after that the man recedes and the tribe takes over.

The tribe east of the Jordan

The tribal story is mostly told in Numbers and Joshua, in verses this dossier lists but does not quote: Numbers 1:20-21, Numbers 32:1-2, Deuteronomy 3:12, Deuteronomy 3:16, Deuteronomy 4:43, Deuteronomy 29:8, Joshua 1:12, Judges 5:15-16, 2 Kings 10:33 and a string of texts in 1 Chronicles. One episode is given in full. "The children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they owned, according to the commandment of Yahweh by Moses" (Joshua 22:9). By the Jordan they built "a great altar to look at" (Joshua 22:10), and Israel gathered against them. The confrontation ended in relief: "Today we know that Yahweh is among us, because you have not committed this trespass against Yahweh" (Joshua 22:31), and the tribes "named the altar 'A Witness Between Us that Yahweh is God'" (Joshua 22:34). Far from the center, they wanted it on record that they belonged.

The sin in his father's house

Genesis does not protect him. "While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel heard of it" (Genesis 35:22). It is told in one sentence, with no excuse, no speech from Reuben, and no reported reply from his father in the quoted verse. The firstborn who would later say "Shed no blood" had already shed his father's honour. The same chapter that records the sin records the title "Jacob's firstborn" one verse later (Genesis 35:23), and the two stand side by side without comment.

What we are not told

The passages before us give no account of Reuben's death, no age, no burial, and no word from him after the family entered Egypt. We are told nothing of what he thought about what he did with Bilhah, and nothing of how his father answered him in that verse. Whether he ever saw the land his descendants held east of the Jordan is not said here.

The name that outlives the man

Centuries later the name is still being written down. Ezekiel's vision assigns it a place among the portions: "By the border of Ephraim, from the east side even to the west side, Reuben, one portion. By the border of Reuben, from the east side to the west side, Judah, one portion" (Ezekiel 48:6-7); see also Ezekiel 48:31. And the single New Testament mention keeps it: Reuben is named in Revelation 7:5. That is the line, and it is enough. The man who lay with his father's concubine, and who once pleaded for a brother's life at a pit, is not erased from the people of God. His name is read out in the last book, among those God numbers as His own.