The Torah in Parashat Vayigash lists the names of Yaakov’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who relocated with him from Canaan to Egypt. Among the names mentioned in this list is “Shaul Ben Ha-kena’anit” – “Shaul, son of the Canaanite woman” – who is included among the sons of Shimon (46:10).
Different approaches have been taken by the commentators in attempting to identify Shaul and his “Canaanite” mother. The simplest explanation, perhaps, is that suggested by the Radak and Ibn Ezra, who claimed that with the exception of Shimon, all of Yaakov’s sons made a point of not marrying Canaanite women. Ibn Ezra lists a number of other nations from where the sons’ wives conceivably could have originated – Egypt, Midyan, Aram and Edom. Yaakov’s sons specifically avoided the women of Canaan, following the example of their great-grandfather, Avraham, who did not want his son to marry Canaanite women. Shimon, however, did marry a Canaanite woman (in addition to his other wife or wives), who begot Shaul. Ibn Ezra adds that the Torah mentioned Shaul’s wife’s nationality as criticism of Shimon for violating the norm that the family had accepted. He notes that for this same reason the Torah mentions the births and deaths of Er and Onan, Yehuda’s two eldest sons. As these men died before Yaakov’s family moved to Egypt, there seems to be no reason for their inclusion in this list. Ibn Ezra suggests that the Torah mentioned Er and Onan to express its disapproval of Yehuda’s marriage to the Canaanite woman with whom he begot these two sons.
The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 80:11), however, cited by Rashi, presents a much different theory, namely, that Shimon married his sister, Dina, after rescuing her from the city of Shekhem. After her defilement at the hands of the city’s prince, Dina demanded that Shimon marry her, and this union produced Shaul. Dina is called the “Canaanite woman” because she was abducted and defiled by a Canaanite man.
We find variations of the Midrash’s approach in some later commentaries. Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch accepts the notion that Shaul was Dina’s son, but suggests that he resulted from her forced union with Shekhem, rather than her willful marriage to Shimon. Shaul then joined the family of his maternal grandfather, Yaakov. Rav Hirsch does not explain why Shaul is listed among specifically the sons of Shimon, but we might speculate that as one of the two brothers who rescued Dina, Shimon felt it was his responsibility to also care for her child, and Shaul therefore is included among his sons. (Interestingly, Rav Hirsch notes in this context that Shaul’s membership in Yaakov’s family might serve as an ancient source for the halakhic principle of matrilineal descent.)
Shadal offers a different explanation, one which absolves us from having to identify Dina as a “Canaanite woman.” He suggests that when Dina was abducted, she conceived with a girl, whom Shimon later married. Dina’s daughter is called a “Canaanite woman” because her biological father was a Canaanite man. Shaul was then the product of the marriage between Shimon and his niece – Dina’s daughter.
Shadal further notes that this approach may help solve another mystery related to this list of Yaakov’s offspring, namely, the number seventy which the Torah mentions as the sum total of Yaakov’s family members (46:27). Already Chazal noted that only sixty-nine names are listed, and thus the figure of seventy seems imprecise. A famous Midrashic tradition claims that Yokheved, Levi’s daughter, was born just as Yaakov’s family crossed the border into Egypt, and she is thus the “missing” grandchild of Yaakov. Shadal, however, suggests that the “Canaanite woman” born to Dina might also account for the number seventy. Yaakov’s sons’ wives are explicitly not included in the total of seventy (“milevad neshei venei Yaakov” – 46:26), but this wife of Shimon, who was Dina’s daughter, might have indeed been included, as she was Yaakov’s granddaughter. This might thus explain how the Torah arrived at a total of seventy.