Jacob's twelfth and last son, the second of Rachel's — born on the road near Bethlehem as she died in labor (35:16-18). Her dying name for him was BEN-ONI, 'son of my sorrow'; his father overrode it to BENJAMIN, 'son of the right hand' (the hand of strength and favor, or 'son of the south') — the only child in Genesis whose name a parent changes, a father refusing to let his beloved wife's last son carry her grief for life. The full brother of JOSEPH, he becomes the pledge and pivot of the Joseph story — the son Jacob cannot bear to send to Egypt, the cup hidden in his sack, the test that breaks the brothers open (chs. 42-45). His tribe gives Israel its first king, Saul, and the apostle Paul ('of the tribe of Benjamin,' Philippians 3:5); Jacob's deathbed calls him 'a ravenous wolf' (49:27).