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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.

22. Joseph is a fruitful bough. Others translate it, “a son of honor,”²¹⁴²¹⁴     “Filium decoris.” The original is בנ פרת, (Ben porath,) literally, “the son of fruitfulness.” The name of Joseph’s son, Ephriam, is derived from this word. — Ed and both are suitable; but I rather incline to the former sense, because it seems to me that it refers to the name Joseph, by which addition or increase is signified; although I have no objection to the similitude taken from a tree, vehicle, being planted near a fountain, draws from the watered earth the moisture and sap by which it grows the faster. The sum of the figure is, that he is born to grow like a tree situated near a fountain, so that, by its beauty and lofty stature, it may surmount the obstacles around it. For I do not interpret the words which follow to mean that there will be an assemblage of virgins upon the walls, whom the sight of the tree shall have attracted; but, by a continued metaphor, I suppose the tender and smaller branches to be called daughters.²¹⁵²¹⁵     בנות, (Banoth,) literally, “the daughters went over the wall.” But Calvin, with our translators, wisely interprets the expression as a poetical one, meaning the branches, (which are the daughters of the tree,) according to a very usual phraseology of the Hebrew Scriptures. — Ed And they are said “to run over the wall” when they spread themselves far and wide. Besides, Jacob’s discourse does not relate simply to the whole tribe, nor is it a mere prophecy of future times; but the personal history of Joseph is blended with that of his descendants. Thus some things are peculiar to himself, and others belong to the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. So when Joseph is said to have been “grieved,” this is wont to be referred especially to himself. And whereas Jacob has compared him to a tree; so he calls both his brethren and Potiphar, with his wife, “archers.”²¹⁶²¹⁶     Archers, literally, “Lords of the arrows.”
   “The archers shot at him with hpoisoned arrows,
They have pursued him with hatred.”
   Waterland in Caunter’s Poetry of the Pentateuch, vol. I., p. 223. — Ed. Afterwards, however, he changes the figure by making Joseph himself like a strenuous archer, whose bow abides in strength, and whose arms are not relaxed, nor have lost, in any degree, their vigor; by which expressions he predicts the invincible fortitude of Joseph, because he has yielded to no blows however hard and severe. At the same time we are taught that he stood, not by the power of his own arm, but as being strengthened by the hand of God, whom he distinguishes by the peculiar title of “the mighty God of Jacob,” because he designed his power to be chiefly conspicuous, and to shine most brightly in the Church. Meanwhile, he declares that the help by which Joseph was assisted, arose from hence, that God had chosen that family for himself For the holy fathers were extremely solicitous that the gratuitous covenant of God should be remembered by themselves and by their children, whenever any benefit was granted unto them. And truly it is a mark of shameful negligence, not to inquire from what fountain we drink water. In the mean time he tacitly censures the impious and ungodly fury of his ten sons; because, by attempting the murder of their brother, they, like the giants, had carried on war against God. He also admonishes them for the future, that they should rather choose to be protected by the guardianship of God, than to make him their enemy, seeing that he is alike willing to give help to all. And hence arises a consideration consolatory to all the pious, when they hear that the power of God resides in the midst of the Church, if they do but glory in him alone; as the Psalm teaches,

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will invoke the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7.)

The sons of Jacob, therefore, must take care lest they, by confiding in their own strength, precipitate themselves into ruin; but must rather bear themselves nobly and triumphantly in the Lord.

What follows admits of various interpretations. Some translate it, “From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;” as if Jacob would say, that Joseph had been the nourisher and rock, or stay of his house. Others read, “the shepherd of the stone,” in the genitive case, which I approve, except that they mistake the sense, by taking “stone” to mean family. I refer it to God, who assigned the office of shepherd to his servant Joseph, in the manner in which any one uses the service of a hireling to feed his flock. For whence did it arise that he nourished his own people, except that he was the dispenser of the Divine beneficence? Moreover, under this type, the image of Christ is depicted to us, who, before he should come forth as the conqueror of death and the author of life, was set as a mark of contradiction, (Hebrews 12:3,) against whom all cast their darts; as now also, after his example, the Church also must be transfixed with many arrows, that she may be kept by the wonderful help of God. Moreover, lest the brethren should maliciously envy Joseph, Jacob sets his victory in an amiable point of view to them, by saying that he had been liberated in order that he might become their nourisher or shepherd.