What are names of the 12 tribes in the Old Testament?

Answer 1

The Tribes of Israel who inherited land in the Promised Land were:

Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Menasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, and Nephtali

This is the explanation:

Abraham was the tenth generation from Noah through Shem and was born 352 years after Noah's Flood, in 2018 B.C.E.

When Abraham was 100 and his wife Sarah was 90 years old, they had Isaac.

Isaac married Rebekah in 1878 BCE and had twin sons, Jacoband Esau, 20 years later.

Jacob, whose name was changed to 'Israel' by God, went on to have twelve sons, who became the paternal heads of these 12 families (Genesis 49:1-28), or 'tribes of Israel'.

The sons were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Nephtali, Joseph, and Benjamin

All these sons got parcels of land in the Promised Land*

*Except for Levi. Because the tribe of Levi was to be the priestly class, and would be spread out over the promised land to be available to all the other tribes, they had no land inheritance of their own.

*Except for Joseph (who had been taken captive to Egypt). There was no tribe of Joseph, but Jacob gave each of Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, land in among the brothers(so Joseph, in essence, got TWO parcels).

So, the Tribes of Israel who inherited land in the Promised Land were: Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Menasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, Nephtali

(Numbers 1:5-16)