Issachar is Leah’s fifth son (30.17-18). In this verse the tribe of Issachar, who fought under Deborah (Judges 5.15), is blamed for preferring ease to the struggle for freedom from the Canaanites. Issachar is pictured as a loaded donkey that lies down and is unable to get up.

Issachar is a strong ass: the word rendered strong is literally “bony.” Most agree that the sense is not a scrawny animal but one with large bones and therefore strong or well-built. In some languages this kind of comparison to an animal must be shifted to a simile, “Issachar is like a strong donkey” or “Issachar, you are like a strong donkey.” Good News Translation makes the comparison in a negative sense, which is in keeping with the criticism of Issachar in this verse and the next.

Crouching between the sheepfolds: sheepfolds translates a dual noun that is understood also as meaning “saddlebags” (Good News Translation, New International Version). The term is used in this context elsewhere only in Judges 5.16, where Revised Standard Version has “sheepfolds” and Good News Translation “sheep.” Westermann says the verb form favors “sheepfolds.” Sheepfolds refers to groups or flocks of sheep. On the other hand the picture of the kneeling donkey loaded with a pair of saddle baskets and unable to get back to its feet is, as von Rad says, a sadly comical image; as one translation has it, “a tired donkey lying down with its pack bags.” The Handbook recommends something equivalent to “saddlebags.” These are sometimes called “load baskets.” If a more general term must be used, one may say “load.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .