Zilpah זלפה
Leah's handmaid, mother of Gad and Asher
Laban gave her to Leah at the wedding. When Leah ceased to bear she did as Rachel had done before her: she gave her handmaid to her husband. Gad and Asher were born, and Leah named them—"fortune has come" and "happy am I."
Of Zilpah herself the Torah says nothing more: not a word, not an act. She is named in the list of those who went down to Egypt—"these are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter", sixteen souls.
The midrash says of her, as of Bilhah, that she was a daughter of Laban by a concubine; and that she was the younger—and therefore given to the younger daughter… but in the Torah the order is otherwise, and the sages discuss the discrepancy separately.
On the timeline
Places
Sources
Tanakh
- Genesis 29:24 — Laban gives Zilpah to Leah
- Genesis 30:9–13 — the birth of Gad and Asher
- Genesis 46:18 — the sixteen souls of Zilpah
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereshit Rabbah 74:13 — a tradition: daughters of Laban by a concubine
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.