Page "Tribe of Joseph" Paragraph 4

A number of biblical scholars suspect that the Joseph tribes ( including Benjamin ) represent a second migration of Israelites to Israel, later than the main tribes, specifically that it was only the Joseph tribes which went to Egypt and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout ; in the narrative in the Book of Joshua, which concerns the arrival in ( and conquest of ) Canaan by the Israelites from Egypt, the leader is Joshua, who was a member of the Ephraim tribe.

According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants ; it is notable that, according to textual scholars, in the Jahwist version of the story it is only the Joseph tribes that are among these migrants, since it only recounts Jacob as having met Rachel, and the matriarchs of the other Israelite tribes-Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah-do not appear.