Who were the sons of Benjamin, and were Naaman and Ard his sons or his grandsons?

The lists answer different questions, and in Hebrew ‘son’ (ben) can mean any male descendant. Genesis 46 is not a simple head-count of travellers: it already includes Joseph’s two sons, born in Egypt (46:20, 27). Barnes’ Notes and Keil and Delitzsch read it as a list of the men whose names were handed down as heads of Israel’s families at the Exodus. Numbers 26 then makes precise what Genesis leaves general. Ard and Naaman were sons of Bela, and so Benjamin’s grandsons (Numbers 26:40); Genesis counts them among his ‘sons’ because each founded a clan of the tribe, much as Jacob took his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons (Genesis 48:5). 1 Chronicles 8:3–4 agrees, putting Naaman and Gera among Bela’s sons, with Addar, very probably Ard with two Hebrew letters reversed (Ard is ʾRD, Addar ʾDR).

Many of the other differences are spellings or second names. Ehi in Genesis is Ahiram in Numbers, and very probably Aharah in 1 Chronicles 8:1; Muppim and Huppim are Shupham and Hupham. 1 Chronicles 8:1–2 follows the order of Numbers, Bela, Ashbel, Ahiram (Aharah), and its Nohah and Rapha stand where Numbers has Shupham and Hupham, either as other names for them or as later heads of their clans. Numbers names only the sons whose lines formed clans in Moses’ day, so Becher, Gera and Rosh are missing there, perhaps because their lines died out or were too small to stand alone.

1 Chronicles 7:6–11 has another purpose again. It is a register of fighting men from a later time, apparently David’s (compare 7:2), and it names the three houses of Benjamin then counted, with their numbers. Becher’s house had grown by then, and Jediael, found nowhere else, was either a later chief or, as many older commentators thought, another name for Ashbel. None of the lists says ‘these and no others’, and each is true of what it sets out to record.

Sons named after their uncles

The Pulpit Commentary reports a view it credits to Keil and others (though Keil and Delitzsch’s own note on Genesis 46 gives the explanation above): Benjamin’s own sons Naaman and Ard died early, and two of Bela’s sons, named after them, took their place as heads of families. On this view Genesis names the uncles and Numbers the nephews.

The Greek list

The Septuagint arranges Genesis 46:21 differently: Bela, Becher and Ashbel are Benjamin’s sons; Gera, Naaman and others are sons of Bela; and Ard (Arad) is the son of Gera. Whether the translators had a different Hebrew text or were explaining the list, they too understood it to include grandsons.

Becher counted with Ephraim

Numbers 26:35 lists a family of ‘Bachrites’, from Becher, in the tribe of Ephraim. Barnes’ Notes reports a conjecture that Becher or one of his heirs married a woman of Ephraim who had inherited her father’s land, so that his house was counted with Ephraim in Moses’ day, while Chronicles still lists him under Benjamin by descent. This is a guess, though a reasonable one.

The Benjamite lists in Chronicles are among the hardest in the Bible, and several identifications above (Jediael with Ashbel, Nohah and Rapha with Shupham and Hupham, Addar with Ard) are informed guesses rather than certainties. Keil and Delitzsch called 1 Chronicles 7:12 unintelligible as it stands, and some names may have suffered in copying.