Genesis 49 King James Version (KJV)
49 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.
3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:
4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.
5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
6 O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.
7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.
8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.
9 Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?
10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:
12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.
13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.
14 Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:
15 And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.
16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.
18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.
19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.
20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.
21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.
22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)
25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.
27 Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.
29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.
31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.
32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.
33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
Commentary
Blessings on Jacob’s twelve sons (49:1-28)
The last words of Jacob to his sons found their fulfilment in the history of Israel’s twelve tribes (49:1-2). First Jacob dealt with the six sons of Leah (see v. 3-15), then with the four sons of the minor wives (see v. 16-21), and finally with the two sons of Rachel (see v. 22-27).
Reuben should have been strong, but through lack of self-control he lost the leadership of the nation (3-4; cf. 35:22). Simeon and Levi had been violent, and their tribes were scattered in Israel (5- 7; cf. 34:25-26). Simeon lost its separate tribal identity and was absorbed into Judah (Josh 19:1,9). Levi, however, had a more honourable scattering because of its zeal against idolatry. It had no separate tribal inheritance of its own, but was given cities in all the other tribes (Exod 32:26-29; Num 35:2-8).
Judah was the leading tribe, fierce and powerful in conquering its enemies and ruling over
the other tribes. From this tribe came the royal family of David, whose greatest king, the Messiah, would rule universally in an age of unimaginable prosperity (8-12; cf. Judg 1:2; 2 Sam 7:16; Rev 5:5).
The tribe of Zebulun, which settled near the Mediterranean coast, was enriched through the trade that passed through its territory to the sea (13; cf. Deut 33:18-19). Issachar gained some prosperity from the good farming country it inhabited, but too often it submitted to the powerful Canaanites who controlled much of the region (14-15).
Though pushed out of its original territory on the coast, Dan believed it had the same right to exist as any other tribe. It gained a new dwelling place in the far north, but only by treachery and cruelty (16-18; cf. Judg 18:1-31). Gad, on the east of Jordan, was more open to attack than the western tribes, but its men were fierce fighters who drove back the invaders (19; cf. Deut 33:20).
Asher, bordering the northern coast, lived in rich farming lands whose olive orchards produced the best oil in Palestine (20; cf. Deut 33:24). The neighbouring tribe of Naphtali spread across the highland pasture lands to the Sea of Galilee (21; cf. Deut 33:23).
At the time of Jacob’s prophecy, Joseph was at the height of his power. He may have been treacherously attacked in the past, but God had strengthened and blessed him (22-24). The two tribes descended from Joseph were likewise blessed. They were large in number, and the regions they occupied were among the best in the land (25-26; cf. Josh 17:17-18). The final tribe, Benjamin, was too warlike for its own good, and brought such trouble upon itself that it was almost wiped out (27-28; cf. Judg 19:1- 21:25).
Deaths of Jacob and Joseph (49:29-50:26)
Again Jacob insisted that he be buried at Machpelah, as a final witness that he died having the same faith as Abraham and Isaac (29-33; cf. 47:29-31). When Jacob died, Pharaoh declared an official time of mourning for him of seventy days. Pharaoh also sent a large group of officials and servants to Canaan with Jacob’s family to provide all necessary help and protection (50:1-9). The Canaanites were amazed that Egyptians should come all the way to Canaan to bury someone who was obviously a very important person (10-14).
After seventeen years in Egypt (see 47:28), Joseph’s brothers still had feelings of guilt and fear because of their treatment of Joseph in his youth. Joseph was saddened that they should think he might yet try to take revenge on them. He repeated that he would look after them in the future as he had in the past, for God had overruled their evil to preserve the family (15-21; cf. 45:7).
Joseph lived for at least another fifty years after the death of his father (22; cf. 41:46; 45:6; 47:28). Like his father he saw his family grow, and he died with the same assurance that his descendants would inhabit the promised land. As an expression of that faith, he left instructions that when the covenant people moved to Canaan they take his remains with them (23-26; cf. Heb 11:22). His faith was not disappointed (Exod 13:19; Josh 24:32).