Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

49. Jacob Blesses His Sons

¹ Then Jacob called for his sons and said: “Gather around so I can tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

² “Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob;
listen to your father Israel.

    ³ “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
   my might, the first sign of my strength,
   excelling in honor, excelling in power.
⁴ Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel,
   for you went up onto your father’s bed,
   onto my couch and defiled it.

    ⁵ “Simeon and Levi are brothers—
   their swords The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain. are weapons of violence.
⁶ Let me not enter their council,
   let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their anger
   and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
⁷ Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
   and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
   and disperse them in Israel.

    ⁸ “Judah, Judah sounds like and may be derived from the Hebrew for praise. your brothers will praise you;
   your hand will be on the neck of your enemies;
   your father’s sons will bow down to you.
⁹ You are a lion’s cub, Judah;
   you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
   like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
¹⁰ The scepter will not depart from Judah,
   nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Or from his descendants
until he to whom it belongs Or to whom tribute belongs; the meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain. shall come
   and the obedience of the nations shall be his.
¹¹ He will tether his donkey to a vine,
   his colt to the choicest branch;
he will wash his garments in wine,
   his robes in the blood of grapes.
¹² His eyes will be darker than wine,
   his teeth whiter than milk. Or will be dull from wine, / his teeth white from milk

    ¹³ “Zebulun will live by the seashore
   and become a haven for ships;
   his border will extend toward Sidon.

    ¹⁴ “Issachar is a rawboned Or strong donkey
   lying down among the sheep pens. Or the campfires; or the saddlebags
¹⁵ When he sees how good is his resting place
   and how pleasant is his land,
he will bend his shoulder to the burden
   and submit to forced labor.

    ¹⁶ “Dan Dan here means he provides justice. will provide justice for his people
   as one of the tribes of Israel.
¹⁷ Dan will be a snake by the roadside,
   a viper along the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
   so that its rider tumbles backward.

¹⁸ “I look for your deliverance, LORD.

¹⁹ “Gad Gad sounds like the Hebrew for attack and also for band of raiders. will be attacked by a band of raiders,
but he will attack them at their heels.

²⁰ “Asher’s food will be rich;
he will provide delicacies fit for a king.

²¹ “Naphtali is a doe set free
that bears beautiful fawns. Or free; / he utters beautiful words

    ²² “Joseph is a fruitful vine,
   a fruitful vine near a spring,
   whose branches climb over a wall. Or Joseph is a wild colt, / a wild colt near a spring, / a wild donkey on a terraced hill
²³ With bitterness archers attacked him;
   they shot at him with hostility.
²⁴ But his bow remained steady,
   his strong arms stayed Or archers will attack … will shoot … will remain … will stay limber,
because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob,
   because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,
²⁵ because of your father’s God, who helps you,
   because of the Almighty, Hebrew Shaddai who blesses you
with blessings of the skies above,
   blessings of the deep springs below,
   blessings of the breast and womb.
²⁶ Your father’s blessings are greater
   than the blessings of the ancient mountains,
   than Or of my progenitors, / as great as the bounty of the age-old hills.
Let all these rest on the head of Joseph,
   on the brow of the prince among Or of the one separated from his brothers.

    ²⁷ “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf;
   in the morning he devours the prey,
   in the evening he divides the plunder.”

²⁸ All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, giving each the blessing appropriate to him.

The Death of Jacob

²⁹ Then he gave them these instructions: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. ³¹ There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah. ³² The field and the cave in it were bought from the Hittites. Or the descendants of Heth”

³³ When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

7. Cursed be their anger. What I have said must be kept in mind; namely, that we are divinely admonished by the mouth of the holy prophet, to keep at a distance from all wicked counsels. Jacob pronounces a woe upon their fury. Why is this, unless that others may learn to put a restraint upon themselves, and to be on their guard against such cruelty? However, (as I have already observed,) it will not suffice to preserve our hands pure, unless we are far removed from all association with crime. For though it may not always be in our power to repress unjust violence; yet that concealment of it is culpable, which approaches to the appearance of consent. Here even the ties of kindred, and whatever else would bias a sound judgment, must be dismissed from the mind: since we see a holy father, at the command of God, so severely thundering against his own sons. He pronounces the anger of Simon and Levi to be so much the more hateful, because, in its commencement, it was violent, and even to the end, it was implacable.

I will divide them in Jacob. It may seem a strange method of proceeding, that Jacob, while designating his sons patriarchs of the Church, and calling them heirs of the divine covenant, should pronounce a malediction upon them instead of a blessing. Nevertheless it was necessary for him to begin with the chastisement, which should prepare the way for the manifestation of God’s grace, as will be made to appear at the close of the chapter: but God mitigates the punishment, by giving them an honorable name in the Church, and leaving them their right unimpaired: yea, his incredible goodness unexpectedly shone forth, when that which was the punishment of Levi, became changed into the reward of the priesthood. The dispersion of the Levitical tribe had its origin in the crime of their father, lest he should congratulate himself on account of his perverse and lawless spirit of revenge. But God, who in the beginning had produced light out of darkness, found another reason why the Levites should be dispersed abroad among the people, — a reason not only free from disgrace, but highly honorable, — namely, that no corner of the land might be destitute of competent instructors. Lastly, he constituted them overseers and governors, in his name, over every part of the land, as if he would scatter everywhere the seed of eternal salvation, or would send forth ministers of his grace. Whence we conclude, how much better it was for Levi to be chastised at the time, for his own good, than to be left to perish, in consequence of present impunity in sin. And it is not to be deemed strange, that, when the land was distributed, and cities were given to the Levites, far apart from each other, this reason was suppressed,²⁰²²⁰² As being no longer applicable to the case, because it was purely personal and belonged to Levi, only as an individual, and not to his descendents. — Ed. and one entirely different was adduced; namely, that the Lord was their inheritance. For this, as I have lately said, is one of the miracles of God, to brine light out of darkness. Had Levi been sentenced to distant exile, he would have been most worthy of the punishment: but now, God in a measure spares him, by assigning him a wandering life in his paternal inheritance. Afterwards, the mark of infamy being removed, God sends his posterity into different parts, under the title of a distinguished embassy. In Simon there remained a certain, though obscure trace of the curse: because a distinct territory did not fall to his sons by lot; but they were mixed with the tribe of Judah, as is stated in Joshua 19:1. Afterwards they went to Mount Seir, having expelled the Amalekites and taken possession of their land, as it is written, (1 Chronicles 4:40-43.) Here, also, we perceive the manly fortitude of holy Jacob’s breast, who, though a decrepit old man and an exile, lying on his private and lowly couch, nevertheless assigns provinces to his sons, as from the lofty throne of a great king. He also does this in his own right, knowing that the covenant of God was deposited with him, by which he had been called the heir and lord of the land: and at the same time he claims for himself authority as sustaining the character of a prophet of God. For it greatly concerns us, when the word of God sounds in our ears, to apprehend by faith the thing proclaimed, as if his ministers had been commanded to carry into effect what they pronounce. Therefore it was said to Jeremiah,

“See I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, and to build, and to plant.” (Jeremiah 1:10.)

And the prophets are generally commanded to set their faces against the countries which they threaten, as if they were furnished with a large army to make the attack.