ZEBULUN, ZEBULUNITES zĕb’ yə lən, īts זְבֻלֽוּן, זְבוּלֻ֗ן. The first form of the Heb. word is found only in Judg 1:30, the latter form is frequent and interchangeable.

1. Zebulun,tenth son of Jacob and sixth of Leah, was conceived in the rivalry of Leah and Rachel and so named because Leah felt reassured that God had bestowed a good dowry and her husband would henceforth dwell with or honor her (Gen 30:19, 20): since zābhadh meant “bestow” and zabalu (apparently Akkad.) meant either “dwell with” or more likely “honor,” a dual significance seems implied. Little else is recorded of Zebulun, though his three sons were born before he left Canaan for Egypt (Gen 46:14) where Joseph presented him to Pharaoh (47:2).

2. The tribe of Zebulun,subdivided into clans named after his sons Sered, Elon and Jahleel, encamped with Judah’s standard to the E of the Tabernacle (Num 2:7). Gaddiel the son of Sodi was named to help spy out Canaan (Num 13:10) and Eliab the son of Helon selected to assist Moses in census-taking (Num 1:9). The two counts, showing that there were 57,400 and 60,500 warriors at the beginning and end of the Exodus (Num 1:31; 26:27) indicate that Zebulun was numerically fourth among the tribes but a lowlier place is intimated in the selection of Zebulun—descended from Leah’s last son—to share the lot of shamed Reuben and the handmaid’s sons in pronouncing the cursings from Mt. Ebal (Deut 27:13).

3. Tribal heritage. With the third allotment (Josh 19:10-16) Zebulun received a northern region which was small, but fruitful and strategically located. Not that the boundaries are entirely clear, for the uncertainty of place names, a hint of textual corruption and the cryptic nature of some passages blur the territorial limits. The anomaly of Tabor’s inclusion (1 Chron 6:77) apparently results from a textual flaw, while Chisloth-Tabor (Chesulloth) and Daberath may, without incompatibility, have marked the boundaries of Zebulun and belonged to Issachar (cf. Josh 19:12, 13, 18, 20; 21:28). More puzzling is the seeming incompatibility of these boundaries and Asher’s coastal inheritance with Jacob’s prediction that Zebulun would dwell at the shore of the sea, become a haven for ships, and have his border at Sidon (Gen 49:13). Various solutions have been mooted. Some, noting Josephus’ intimation that Zebulun extended from Gennesareth to the land belonging “to Carmel and the sea” (Antiq. V. 1. 22), suggest an otherwise-unrecorded extension to the Mediterranean; others suggest that a sharing of the Galilean shore with Naphtali was intended; while still others read the text as implying no more than proximity to the “coastlands” and to Phoenicia, with a profitable and intermediate location for traffic of land and sea. Certainly, as Isaiah may imply (Isa 9:1), Zebulun commanded the “Way of the Sea” and sucked the treasures of sea and sand (Deut 33:19). Some infer the existence of commercial covenants with neighbors from Deuteronomy 33:19 and Judges 1:30, and believe that the tribal economy and bounds were later expanded by fusion with Asher or Issachar.

Such hypotheses apart, the boundaries of Joshua 19, though undeciphered in detail, are clear in general. Zebulun’s southern limit extended from an undetermined stream E of Jokneam across the northern fringe of Esdraelon and along the limestone scarp of Nazareth to the slopes of Tabor. From there it turned irregularly northward, approximately following the Galilean-Mediterranean watershed before bending westward to the Iphtahel—either the broad Sahl el-Battōf or the narrow zigzag of the Wadi Malik. At least major portions of the basins of Tur’an and Battōf (or Asochis) were encompassed before the boundary headed southward across the natural “marchland” of infertile and forested Cenomanian limestone and the margins of the Acre (or Zebulun) and Esdraelon plains.

4. Economic and historical role. Thus Zebulun, favored by a generally westward slope toward rain-bearing winds and an E-to-W pattern of fault and fold, presented a varied succession of limestone ridge and rich alluvial valley and yielded olives, grapes, and wheat in particular abundance. Tribal contributions to David’s coronation festivities were generous (1 Chron 12:40) and characteristically patriotic. Though only Elon among the Judges was recorded as a Zebulunite (Judg 12:11, 12), the tribe played a major role in the defeat of Sisera and Midian (Judg 4:6, 10; 5:14, 18; 6:35), and sent 50,000 warriors to David at Hebron (1 Chron 12:33). Some, accepted for their transparent zeal, attended Hezekiah’s passover (2 Chron 30:10-19). If the tribe as such seems to have disappeared before or during Tiglath-pileser’s invasion (2 Kings 15:29), its sturdy remnants, mingled with later immigrants, played a noble role in the Maccabean and Roman eras. Nor did Zebulun fade from eschatological vision (Ezek 48:26, 27, 33; Rev 7:8), while Matthew, recalling Isaiah 9:1, saw the Messiah from the Zebulunite city of Nazareth flooding Zebulun and Naphtali with light (Matt 4:13-16).

Bibliography G. A. Smith, Historical Geography of the Holy Land (1931); J. Garstang, Joshua-Judges (1931); H. H. Rowley, From Joseph to Joshua (1948); D. Baly, Geography of the Bible (1957); D. Baly, Geographical Companion to the Bible (1963).