The youngest son of Jacob and Rachel and ancestor of the tribe of Benjamin.
Benjamin was the youngest of the twelve sons of the patriarch Jacob (Israel) and the second son of Rachel. According to the Book of Genesis he was the only one of Jacob's sons born in the land of Canaan. His mother Rachel died in giving birth to him; as she died she named him Ben-oni, but Jacob renamed him Benjamin (Genesis 35:16-18). He became the ancestor of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The Orthodox Church commemorates Benjamin among the company of the Holy Forefathers, the Old Testament patriarchs and ancestors of Christ celebrated on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers in the weeks before the Nativity.
Benjamin was born to Jacob and Rachel in Canaan as the youngest of Jacob's twelve sons and the full brother of Joseph. Genesis records that Rachel died during his birth; as she was dying she named the child Ben-oni, a name understood as 'son of my pain' or 'son of my sorrow,' but his father instead called him Benjamin, traditionally rendered 'son of the right hand' (Genesis 35:16-18).
Benjamin figures prominently in the account of Joseph in Egypt (Genesis 42-45). As the youngest son and the surviving full brother of Joseph, he remained with his father while the older brothers traveled to Egypt for grain during the famine. Joseph, then governor of Egypt and not yet recognized by his brothers, required them to bring Benjamin down to Egypt.
When Benjamin was brought before him, Joseph wept at the sight of his brother and set before him portions larger than those of the others. Joseph then had a silver cup secretly placed in Benjamin's sack and demanded that Benjamin be held as a slave. This crisis moved Judah to plead for the boy's release, after which Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers and was reconciled with them.
On his deathbed Jacob blessed Benjamin in prophetic language: 'Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he consumes the foe, and in the evening he divides the spoil' (Genesis 49:27).
Benjamin became the progenitor of the tribe that bore his name, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Its territory in the Holy Land lay between Ephraim to the north and Judah to the south, with the Jordan River as its eastern boundary, and included the cities of Bethel and Gibeah and part of the northern hills near Jerusalem. Among its later members were King Saul, the first king of Israel, and the Apostle Paul, who described himself as 'of the tribe of Benjamin' (Philippians 3:5).
Benjamin is not the subject of a fixed daily synaxarion entry but is honored together with the patriarchs and ancestors of Christ. The Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, kept on the Sunday falling within December 11-17 before the Nativity, commemorates the Old Testament forebears who lived before and under the Law, among them Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and his sons. The anchor date of December 14 situates Benjamin within this pre-Nativity Forefathers cycle.