“And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Ben–oni: but his father called him Benjamin.”
As she breathed her last — for she was dying — she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin. Ben-Oni means son of my trouble; Benjamin means son of my right hand. The dying mother names her son from her pain; the father renames him from his honor. Both names are true: he cost Rachel her life; he is Jacob's favored son. The application: the two names of Benjamin hold the two truths of his arrival — grief and blessing, subtraction and addition.
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