t12papocrypha
Testament of Naphtali 1
Naphtali, son of Bilhah and grandson by adoption of Rachel, opens his final testament by tracing his lineage to Rotheus, a Chaldean freedman of Abraham's family who was taken captive and purchased by Laban. The genealogical precision is deliberate: Naphtali's covenant standing flows through Rachel's adoptive claim over Bilhah's children, placing him within the birthright line of Joseph, who was born as the answer to Rachel's prayers and who bore Naphtali's own form. Lineage here is simultaneously blood, covenant, and adoption — all three operating together as the frame for the words that follow.
1
The record of the testament of Naphtali, what things he ordained at the time of his death in the hundred and thirty-second year of his life. When his sons were gathered together in the seventh month, the fourth day of the month, he, being yet in good health, made them a feast and good cheer. And after he was awake in the morning, he said to them, I am dying; and they believed him not. And he blessed the Lord; and affirmed that after yesterday’s feast he should die. He began then to say to his sons: Hear, my children; ye sons of Naphtali, hear the words of your father. I was born from Bilhah; and because Rachel dealt craftily, and gave Bilhah in place of herself to Jacob, and she bore me upon Rachel’s lap, therefore was I called Naphtali. And Rachel loved me because I was born upon her lap; and when I was of young and tender form, she was wont to kiss me, and say, Would that I might see a brother of thine from my own womb, like unto thee: whence also Joseph was like unto me in all things, according to the prayers of Rachel. Now my mother was Bilhah, daughter of Rotheus the brother of Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, and she was born on one and the self-same day with Rachel. And Rotheus was of the family of Abraham, a Chaldean, fearing God, free-born and noble; and he was taken captive, and was bought by Laban; and he gave him Aena his handmaid to wife, and she bore a daughter, and called her Zilpah, after the name of the village in which he had been taken captive. And next she bore Bilhah, saying, My daughter is eager after what is new, for immediately that she was born she was eager for the breast.
