And it came to pass, when Israel dwelt in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father's concubine: and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve:
Reuben ... lay with Bilhah ... and Israel heard it. Jonathan in his Targum says, that Reuben only overthrew the bed of Bilhah, which was set up opposite to the bed of his mother Leah, and that this was imputed to him as if he had lain with her. The Targumist assigns as the reason of Reuben's anger, that he was incensed on finding, after the death of Rachel, the preference was given to Bilhah over his mother Leah; and that it was through the impulse of excitement, caused by the discovery of this favouritism, that he overturned her couch.
But the silent grief with which the historian insinuates the report of Reuben's misconduct affected his father, and the severe terms in which the patriarch animadverted upon it in his dying address (Genesis 49:3), afford too much ground for considering that Reuben had committed the crime of incest. This view is confirmed by the Septuagint version, which adds the following clause kai poneeron efanee enantion autou, 'and it appeared grievous to him.' It is impossible, however, now to know whether these words originally formed part of the Hebrew text, or whether the Septuagint translators inserted them under the belief that a clause necessary to complete the sense had dropped out. 'The piska, however, in the middle of Genesis 35:22, does not betoken any gap in the text; but the conclusion of a parashah, a division of the text of greater antiquity and greater correctness than the Masoretic division' (Delitzsch).