Zilpah

Servant of Leah who became a concubine of Jacob and one of the four mothers of Israel’s twelve tribes. When Leah stopped bearing children, she gave Zilpah to Jacob as a wife—following the custom Rachel had initiated with Bilhah—so that children born to Zilpah would be counted as Leah’s own.

Zilpah bore two sons: Gad, whose name means “fortune” (Leah declaring “Good fortune has come!”), and Asher, meaning “happy” (“Happy am I! For women have called me happy”). The tribe of Gad settled east of the Jordan River, while Asher’s territory was the northwest coastal region. Though of lower status than the wives, Zilpah’s sons were fully counted among Jacob’s heirs and founders of Israelite tribes.