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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.

4. Unstable as water. He shows that the honor which had not a good conscience for its keeper, was not firm but evanescent; and thus he rejects Reuben from the primogeniture. He declares the cause, lest Reuben should complain that he was punished when innocent: for it was also of great consequence, in this affair, that he should be convinced of his fault, lest his punishment should not be attended with profit. We now see Jacob, having laid carnal affection aside, executing the office of a prophet with vigor and magnanimity. For this judgment is not to be ascribed to anger, as if the father desired to take private vengeance of his son: but it proceeded from the Spirit of God; because Jacob kept fully in mind the burden imposed upon him. The word עלח (alach) the close of the sentence signifies to depart, or to be blown away like the ascending smoke, which is dispersed.¹⁹⁶¹⁹⁶ The literal translation of Calvin’s version is, “Thy velocity was like that of water, thou shalt not excel: because thou wentest up into thy father’s couch, then thou pollutedst my bed, he has vanished.” This gives the patriarch’s expression a different turn from that supposed by our translators; who understand the last word in the sentence to be a repetition of what had been said before, only putting it in the third person, as expressive of indignation; as if he had turned round from Reuben to his other children and said — “Yes, I declare he went up into my bed!” Another view is given in the margin of our Bible, “My couch is gone;” which means that, by this defilement, the marriage bond was broken. To this version Calvin objects at the close of the paragraph. But both these constructions seem forced. Calvin’s appears the most natural. He represents Reuben as having lost all, by his criminal conduct. Honour, excellence, priority, virtue, and consequently character and influence, had all gone up as the dew from the face of the earth, and had vanished away. — Ed. Therefore the sense is, that the excellency of Reuben, from the time that he had defiled his father’s bed, had flowed away and become extinct. For to expound the expression concerning the bed, to mean that it ceased to be Jacob’s conjugal bed, because Bilhah had been divorced, is too frigid.