Issachar is a strong ass
Or as one, the note of similitude being wanting, as Ben Melech
observes; "a bony" F5 one, as the word signifies; not one
that is lean, and nothing but skin and bones, as some interpret
it, but that is strong and robust, able to carry burdens; and
this tribe is compared to an ass, not for stupidity and
sluggishness, but for its strength, and its use in husbandry, in
which this tribe was chiefly occupied: the Targums of Jonathan
and Jarchi interpret this figuratively, of his being strong to
bear the yoke of the law: and it is a notion of the Jews, that
this tribe were skilful in the doctrines of the law, and the
intercalation of years, &c. from ( 1
Chronicles 12:32 ) couching down between two burdens: one
hanging on one side, and another on the other; which Kimchi and
Ben Melech interpret of bales of goods; and may as well be
understood of sacks of corn, or anything else, carried by these
creatures, which, when they come into a good pasture, and for the
sake of that and ease, will lie down with their burdens on them,
and rise up again with them: the Targums of Onkelos and Jerusalem
paraphrase it, "between two borders" {f}, or the borders of his
brethren, as Jonathan, Zebulun and Dan, between which this tribe
lay; and this is the reason Aben Ezra gives why Issachar, who was
older than Zebulun, is mentioned after him, and between him and
Dan, because his land lay between them; and so it may be
observed, that in the division of the land in Joshua's time,
Issachar's lot came up after Zebulun's, ( Joshua
19:10-23 ) but Doctor Lightfoot thinks F7 it
refers to the two kingdoms, between which it lay, that of
Phoenicia on one side, and that of Samaria on the other.