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Jacob’s Last Words to His Sons

49

Then Jacob called his sons, and said: “Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

2

Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob;

listen to Israel your father.

 

3

Reuben, you are my firstborn,

my might and the first fruits of my vigor,

excelling in rank and excelling in power.

4

Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel

because you went up onto your father’s bed;

then you defiled it—you went up onto my couch!

 

5

Simeon and Levi are brothers;

weapons of violence are their swords.

6

May I never come into their council;

may I not be joined to their company—

for in their anger they killed men,

and at their whim they hamstrung oxen.

7

Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,

and their wrath, for it is cruel!

I will divide them in Jacob,

and scatter them in Israel.

 

8

Judah, your brothers shall praise you;

your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;

your father’s sons shall bow down before you.

9

Judah is a lion’s whelp;

from the prey, my son, you have gone up.

He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion,

like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?

10

The scepter shall not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

until tribute comes to him;

and the obedience of the peoples is his.

11

Binding his foal to the vine

and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,

he washes his garments in wine

and his robe in the blood of grapes;

12

his eyes are darker than wine,

and his teeth whiter than milk.

 

13

Zebulun shall settle at the shore of the sea;

he shall be a haven for ships,

and his border shall be at Sidon.

 

14

Issachar is a strong donkey,

lying down between the sheepfolds;

15

he saw that a resting place was good,

and that the land was pleasant;

so he bowed his shoulder to the burden,

and became a slave at forced labor.

 

16

Dan shall judge his people

as one of the tribes of Israel.

17

Dan shall be a snake by the roadside,

a viper along the path,

that bites the horse’s heels

so that its rider falls backward.

 

18

I wait for your salvation, O L ord.

 

19

Gad shall be raided by raiders,

but he shall raid at their heels.

 

20

Asher’s food shall be rich,

and he shall provide royal delicacies.

 

21

Naphtali is a doe let loose

that bears lovely fawns.

 

22

Joseph is a fruitful bough,

a fruitful bough by a spring;

his branches run over the wall.

23

The archers fiercely attacked him;

they shot at him and pressed him hard.

24

Yet his bow remained taut,

and his arms were made agile

by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,

by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

25

by the God of your father, who will help you,

by the Almighty who will bless you

with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that lies beneath,

blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

26

The blessings of your father

are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,

the bounties of the everlasting hills;

may they be on the head of Joseph,

on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

 

27

Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,

in the morning devouring the prey,

and at evening dividing the spoil.”

 

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, blessing each one of them with a suitable blessing.

Jacob’s Death and Burial

29 Then he charged them, saying to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors—in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30in the cave in the field at Machpelah, near Mamre, in the land of Canaan, in the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site. 31There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah— 32the field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.” 33When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.


5. Simeon and Levi are brethren. He condemns the massacre of the city of Shechem by his two sons Simon and Levi, and denounces the punishment of so great a crime. Whence we learn how hateful cruelty is to God, seeing that the blood of man is precious in his sight. For it is as if he would cite to his own tribunal those two men, and would demand vengeance on them, when they thought they had already escaped. It may, however, be asked, whether pardon had not been granted to them long ago; and if God had already forgiven them, why does he recall them again to punishment? I answer, it was both privately useful to themselves, and was also necessary as an example, that this slaughter should not remain unpunished, although they might have obtained previous forgiveness. For we have seen before, when they were admonished by their father, how far they were from that sorrow which is the commencement of true repentance; and it may be believed that afterwards they became stupefied more and more, with a kind of brutish torpor, in their wickedness; or at least, that they had not been seriously affected with bitter grief for their sin. It was also to be feared lest their posterity might become addicted to the same brutality, unless divinely impressed with horror at the deed. Therefore the Lord, partly for the purpose of humbling them, partly for that of making them an example to all ages, inflicted on them the punishment of perpetual ignominy. Moreover, by thus acting, he did not retain the punishment while remitting the guilt, as the Papists foolishly dream: but though truly and perfectly appeased, he administered a correction suitable for future times. The Papists imagine that sins are only half remitted by God; because he is not willing to absolve sinners gratuitously. But Scripture speaks far otherwise. It teaches us that God does not exact punishments which shall compensate for offenses; but such as shall purge hearts from hypocrisy, and shall invite the elect — the allurements of the world being gradually shaken off — to repentance, shall stir them up to vigilant solicitude, and shall keep them under restraint by the bridle of fear and reverence. Whence it follows that nothing is more preposterous, than that the punishments which we have deserved, should be redeemed by satisfactions, as if God, after the manner of men, would have what was owing paid to him; nay, rather there is the best possible agreement between the gratuitous remission of punishments and those chastening of the rod, which rather prevent future evils, than follow such as have been already committed.

To return to Simeon and Levi. How is it that God, by inflicting a punishment which had been long deferred, should drag them back as guilty fugitives to judgment; unless because impunity would have been hurtful to them? And yet he fulfills the office of a physician rather than of a judge, who refuses to spare, because he intends to heal; and who not only heals two who are sick, but, by an antidote, anticipates the diseases of others, in order that they may beware of cruelty. This also is highly worthy to be remembered, that Moses, in publishing the infamy of his own people, acts as the herald of God: and not only does he proclaim a disgrace common to the whole nation, but brands with infamy, the special tribe from which he sprung. Whence it plainly appears, that he paid no respect to his own flesh and blood; nor was he to be induced, by favor or hatred, to give a false color to anything, or to decline from historical fidelity: but, as a chosen minister and witness of the Lord, he was mindful of his calling, which was that he should declare the truth of God sincerely and confidently. A comparison is here made not only between the sons of Jacob personally; but also between the tribes which descended from them. This certainly was a specially opportune occasion for Moses to defend the nobility of his own people. But so far is he from heaping encomiums upon them, that he frankly stamps the progenitor of his own tribe with an everlasting dishonor, which should redound to his whole family. Those Lucianist dogs, who carp at the doctrine of Moses, pretend that he was a vain man who wished to acquire for himself the command over the rude common people. But had this been his project, why did he not also make provision for his own family? Those sons whom ambition would have persuaded him to endeavor to place in the highest rank, he puts aside from the honor of the priesthood, and consigns them to a lowly and common service. Who does not see that these impious calumnies have been anticipated by a divine counsel rather than by merely human prudence, and that the heirs of this great and extraordinary man were deprived of honor, for this reason, that no sinister suspicion might adhere to him? But to say nothing of his children and grandchildren, we may perceive that, by censuring his whole tribe in the person of Levi, he acted not as a man, but as an angel speaking under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and free from all carnal affection. Moreover, in the former clause, he announces the crime: afterwards, he subjoins the punishment. The crime is, that the arms of violence are in their tabernacles; and therefore he declares, both by his tongue and in his heart, that he holds their counsel in abhorrence,197197     If this interpretation were admitted, the passage would read thus: “Simeon and Levi are brethren, instruments of cruelty are their swords.” because, in their desire of revenge, they cut off a city with its inhabitants. Respecting the meaning of the words commentators differ. For some take the word מכרות (makroth) to mean swords; as if Jacob had said, that their swords had been wickedly polluted with innocent blood. But they think more correctly, who translate the word habitations; as if he had said, that unjust violence dwelt among them, because they had been so sanguinary. I do not doubt that the word כבד (chabod) is put for the tongue, as in other places;198198     In coetu eorum non uniaris lingua mea This is Calvin’s version; and it may perhaps be vindicated by the use made of the word כבד in other passages, where the tongue is metaphorically called the glory of man. Yet the passage plainly admits of another and perhaps a more simple signification. — Ed and thus the sense is clear, that Jacob, from his heart, so detests the crime perpetrated by his sons, that his tongue shall not give any assent to it whatever. Which he does, for this end, that they may begin to be dissatisfied with themselves, and that all others may learn to abhor perfidy combined with cruelty. Fury, beyond doubt, signifies a perverse and blind impulse of anger:199199     Quia in furore sua, etc. Because in their fury they killed a man. — Ed. and lust is opposed to rational moderation;200200     Libido is not the word used in Calvin’s version, though his commentary proceeds on that supposition. His words are “voluntate sua eradicaverunt murum.” In their will, or pleasure, they uprooted a wall. — Ed. because they are governed by no law. Interpreters also differ respecting the meaning of the word שור (shor.)201201     The marginal reading of our Bible for “they digged down a wall,” is “they houghed oxen.” Some translators who think that the word ought to be rendered “ox,” and not “wall,” regard the word ox as a metaphorical term for a brave and powerful man. Thus Herder, in Caunter’s Poetry of the Pentateuch, gives the following version:
   “My heart was not joined in their company,
When in anger they slew a hero,
And in revenge destroyed a noble ox.”

   Dr. A. Clarke suggests an alteration in the word, which gives the passage another sense:

   “In their anger they slew a man,
And in their pleasure they murdered a prince.”

   — Ed.
Some translate it “bullock,” and think that the Shechemites are allegorically denoted by it, seeing they were sufficiently robust and powerful to defend their lives, had not Simon and Levi enervated them by fraud and perfidy. But a different exposition is far preferable, namely, that they “overturned a wall.” For Jacob magnifies the atrociousness of their crime, from the fact, that they did not even spare buildings in their rage.


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