Editing Issachar (section)

==Name==
The text of Genesis provides two different sources for the name of ''Issachar''. The first derives it from ''ish sakar'', meaning ''man of hire'', in reference to Leah's hire of Jacob's [[Human reproduction#Copulation|sexual favours]] for the price of some [[Mandrake (mythology)#In the Bible|mandrake]]s.<ref>{{bibleverse||Genesis|30:16}}</ref> The second derives it from ''yesh sakar'', meaning ''there is a reward'', in reference to Leah's opinion that the birth of Issachar was a divine reward for giving her handmaid [[Zilpah]] to Jacob as a concubine.<ref>{{bibleverse||Genesis|30:18}}</ref>

Albright notes that the name Issachar finds a rich parallel in the name of a Semitic slave recorded in the [[Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt|Eighteenth Dynasty]] Egypt derived from the Semitic root ''ś-k-r'' "favorable, favor". The causative *''Yašaśkir'' which constitutes the protoform of "Issachar" would mean approximately "May (God) Grant Favor".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Albright |first=W. F. |date=1954 |title=Northwest-Semitic Names in a List of Egyptian Slaves from the Eighteenth Century B. C. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/595513?seq=1 |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=74 |issue=4 |pages=222–233 |doi=10.2307/595513 |issn=0003-0279|url-access=subscription }}</ref>