Tribes of Israel

Zebulun

Zebulun was a middling tribe with a good record — quick to fight, loyal to David, willing to come south to worship when its own kingdom had abandoned God. And in one of its unremarkable hill villages, a carpenter’s family raised the Son of God.

All twelve tribes The kingdom split

At a glance

NamesakeZebulun, tenth son of Jacob, sixth and last by Leah (Genesis 30:20)

MotherLeah

Name means“Dwelling” or “honor” — “Now my husband will honor me”

Jacob’s blessingGenesis 49:13 — “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; he shall become a haven for ships”

Moses’ blessingDeuteronomy 33:18-19 — “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out”

Census57,400 at Sinai; 60,500 on the plains of Moab (Numbers 1:31; 26:27)

TerritoryLower Galilee, between the Sea of Galilee and the Carmel coast — Nazareth is in it

At the kingdom splitIsrael — the northern kingdom

End of the lineDeported by Assyria; its hills became the home of Jesus

The man behind the tribe

Leah’s sixth and last son, born after five brothers and named in hope that her husband would finally value her: “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons” (Genesis 30:20). Nothing else is recorded of the man.

The blessings

Jacob: “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon” (Genesis 49:13). Zebulun’s actual allotment was inland, though it reached toward both the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee and straddled the trade route between them — the ancient highway later called the Via Maris, “the way of the sea.”

Moses pairs it with Issachar: “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out, and Issachar, in your tents. They shall call peoples to their mountain; there they offer right sacrifices; for they draw from the abundance of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand” (Deuteronomy 33:18-19). Zebulun is the tribe that goes out — trading, travelling, fighting — and its blessing includes calling peoples, plural, to worship on the mountain.

Territory

Lower Galilee: the fertile basin and hills between the Jezreel Valley and the hills of Naphtali, bounded roughly by Mount Tabor to the east and the plain of Acco to the west (Joshua 19:10-16). Twelve towns and their villages, among them Bethlehem of Galilee — and, unnamed in the Old Testament, Nazareth, on a ridge above the Jezreel Valley with a view over the whole plain.

They failed to drive out the Canaanites of Kitron and Nahalol, who became forced labor (Judges 1:30).

History in outline

c. 1903 BC — Born

Leah’s sixth son (Genesis 30:19-20).

c. 1400 BC — Lower Galilee allotted

Zebulun’s twelve towns are assigned (Joshua 19:10-16).

c. 1250 BC — Risking their lives

Barak’s ten thousand come from Zebulun and Naphtali; Deborah’s song honors “Zebulun, a people who risked their lives to the death,” and notes that “from Zebulun those who bear the marshal’s staff” came down (Judges 5:14, 18).

c. 1180 BC — With Gideon

Zebulun answers the call against Midian (Judges 6:35).

c. 1100 BC — Elon

“Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel ten years” (Judges 12:11-12).

c. 1000 BC — With David

50,000 men of Zebulun come to Hebron, “equipped for battle with all the weapons of war, to help David with singleness of purpose” (1 Chronicles 12:33).

c. 715 BC — Coming to the Passover

Hezekiah’s couriers are mocked in most of the north, but “some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem”; more from Zebulun come unprepared and Hezekiah prays for them (2 Chronicles 30:10-11, 18-20).

733 BC — Annexed

Tiglath-pileser takes Galilee (2 Kings 15:29).

722 BC — Exile

The northern kingdom ends (2 Kings 17:6).

c. 700 BC — The prophecy

“In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea... The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:1-2).

c. 5 BC-AD 28 — Nazareth

Joseph and Mary settle in a village in Zebulun’s old territory, and Jesus grows up there (Matthew 2:23; Luke 2:39-40).

c. AD 28 — The light dawns

Jesus moves to Capernaum, and Matthew cites Isaiah: “the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali... the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light” (Matthew 4:13-16).

Israel or Judah?

Israel — the north. Zebulun’s Galilean territory belonged to Jeroboam’s kingdom from 931 BC, was annexed by Assyria in 733 BC, and went into exile with the rest of the north in 722.

But Zebulun is one of the two tribes Chronicles specifically records coming back south to worship. When Hezekiah reopened the temple and invited the survivors of the northern kingdom to keep the Passover in Jerusalem, most of the couriers were laughed at — “but some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came” (2 Chronicles 30:11). A second group from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun came ritually unclean, and Hezekiah prayed, “May the good LORD pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God... even though not according to the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness. And the LORD heard Hezekiah and healed the people” (30:18-20).

Politically Zebulun was northern to the end. Spiritually, some of it came home.

Notable people

Elon, one of the minor judges, who led Israel for ten years. Ishmaiah son of Obadiah, chief officer of Zebulun in David’s administration (1 Chronicles 27:19). And, corporately, the fifty thousand who came to Hebron “with singleness of purpose” — the largest contingent of any tribe, and the only one described as undivided in heart.

Zebulun produced no king and no writing prophet. What it produced was a hillside village, and a household.

Christ connection

Jacob said Zebulun would be “a haven for ships” and Moses said it would “call peoples to their mountain.” Neither came literally true in the Old Testament — Zebulun was landlocked and unremarkable. Both came true in a way no one expected.

Jesus of Nazareth grew up in Zebulun’s hills, was called a Nazarene as an insult (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” — John 1:46), and began His public preaching in the very region Isaiah had named as the first to be humiliated and the first to see the light. The Sermon on the Mount was delivered on a Galilean hillside, and the commission to make disciples of all nations was given on a mountain in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20). The tribe that was told it would call peoples to a mountain to offer right sacrifices ended up being the place from which the whole world was called.

Key passages

Genesis 30:19-20 — Zebulun’s birth and name.
Genesis 49:13 — “A haven for ships.”
Deuteronomy 33:18-19 — “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out... they shall call peoples to their mountain.”
Judges 5:14, 18 — Risking their lives to the death at the Kishon.
Judges 12:11-12 — Elon the Zebulunite.
1 Chronicles 12:33 — Fifty thousand who came to David “with singleness of purpose.”
2 Chronicles 30:10-20 — Men of Zebulun humble themselves and come to Jerusalem.
Isaiah 9:1-2; Matthew 4:13-16 — The land of Zebulun and the great light.