among the Egyptians, a term applied to three days of the week, which are days of less ceremony in religion than the other four, and are so called from the benish, a garment of common use, not of ceremony. At Cairo the benish-days are Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, on which the citizens throw off all business and ceremony, and go to their little summer-houses in the country. BENJAMIN (Sept. Benjamín), youngest son of Jacob, by Rachel. In Gen. lvi. 21, sqq., the immediate descendants of Benjamin are given to the number of ten, whereas in Num. xxvi. 38-40, only seven are enumerated, and some even under different names. This difference probably arose from the circumstance that some of the direct descendants of Benjamin died either early or childless.

The tribe of Benjamin, though the least numerous of Israel, became nevertheless a considerable race. In the desert it counted 35,400 warriors, and at the entrance of Israel into Canaan even as many as 46,600. The portion allotted to this tribe was encompassed by the districts of Ephraim, Dan, and Judah, and contained thirty-six towns (with the villages appertaining to them), of which the principal were Jericho, Bethagla, Bethel, Gibeon, Ramah, and Jebus or Jerusalem.

In the time of the Judges, the tribe of Benjamin became involved in a civil war with the other eleven tribes. This war terminated in the almost utter extinction of the tribe; but it eventually revived, and in the time of David it numbered 59,434 able warriors; in that of Asa, 280,000; and in that of Jehoshaphat, 200,000.

This tribe had the honour of giving the first king to the Jews, Saul being a Benjamite. After the death of Saul, the Benjamites declared themselves for his son Ishhosheth; until, after the assassination of that prince, David became king of all Israel. David having expelled the Jebusites from Zion, and made it his own residence, the close alliance that previously existed between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah was cemented by the circumstance that, while Jerusalem belonged to the district of Benjamin, that of Judah was immediately contiguous to it. At the division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon, Benjamin espoused the cause of Judah, and they formed a kingdom by themselves. Indeed, the two tribes stood always in such a close connection as often to be included under the single term Judah.

BENJAMIN of Tudela, in Navarre, a celebrated Jewish rabbi of the twelfth century, whose Itinerary is a literary curiosity. He visited Constantinople, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia, penetrating to the frontiers of China. Though credulous, and not accurate in discriminating fable from history, his work contains some curious notices of the countries he visited. The Itinerary was translated from the Hebrew into Latin by Arias Montanus in 1575. It appeared in French in 1734, and again in 1830. An English translation was published in 1783, with notes by the Rev. Benjamin Gerans, from the Hebrew and Latin edition of the Elzevirs of 1633.