Genesis 49:1-27--Jacob Blesses His Sons

Jacob Blesses His Sons​
49 Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

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

3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
    my might, and the firstfruits of my strength,
    preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
4 Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,
    because you went up to your father's bed;
    then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!

5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    weapons of violence are their swords.
6 Let my soul come not into their council;
    O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men,
    and in their willfulness 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 cub;
    from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He stooped down; he crouched as a lion
    and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
    and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
11 Binding his foal to the vine
    and his donkey's colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
    and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes are darker than wine,
    and his teeth whiter than milk.

13 “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;
    he shall become a haven for ships,
    and his border shall be at Sidon.

14 “Issachar is a strong donkey,
    crouching between the sheepfolds.
15 He saw that a resting place was good,
    and that the land was pleasant,
so he bowed his shoulder to bear,
    and became a servant at forced labor.

16 “Dan shall judge his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way,
    a viper by the path,
that bites the horse's heels
    so that his rider falls backward.
18 I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

19 “Raiders shall raid Gad,
    but he shall raid at their heels.

20 “Asher's food shall be rich,
    and he shall yield royal delicacies.

21 “Naphtali is a doe let loose
    that bears beautiful fawns.

22 “Joseph is a fruitful bough,
    a fruitful bough by a spring;
    his branches run over the wall.
23 The archers bitterly attacked him,
    shot at him, and harassed him severely,
24 yet his bow remained unmoved;
    his arms were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
    (from there is the Shepherd, the Stone 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 crouches beneath,
    blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
26 The blessings of your father
    are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents,
    up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.
May they be on the head of Joseph,
    and 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.”

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We have already seen Jacob bless the sons of Joseph first and give them their inheritances as part of his last will and testament.  Now it is time for Jacob to do the same for his natural-born sons.  He called together all of his children and their families as witnesses.  This is not primarily a list of material possessions, but instead an mission statement for each according to what God had revealed  for that son and their descendants, as God would uniquely equip each tribe for a specific purpose so that the entire family would be fully equipped to accomplish everything that God had prepared for them--much like how God equips the members of the Church, the Body of Christ, with various spiritual gifts.  Much is said about some tribes and little is said about them, but we should not take this as their having an unimportant role in history or in their nation.  Every member had a vital role to play.

Jacob does bless his sons from oldest to youngest this time.  To Reuben, God gifts the strength and dignity and power of his father Jacob, but at the same time Jacob warns that this will come with the instability of water, and a curse not only on Reuben but all of his descendants because he defiled his father's bed and couch having sexual relations with his father's concubines that we studied earlier.  Once again we see that sin affects more than just ourselves and can bring about a multi-generational curse that only God will be able to undo because otherwise, the natural pattern of things is for the sons to pick up the traits (good and bad) of their father and repeat them generation after generation (especially the bad traits).

Next Jacob addresses Simeon and Levi.  He addresses their violence against the Canaanites who defiled their sister Dinah.  Jacob seems to say in the presence of everyone to hear that these two are bad examples to follow and that they should be careful about association with them and that their fierce anger and desire for vengeance displeases the Lord, and that they will continue to be divisive forces for Israel and that they will be scattered among the land (Levi will not really have a tribal land because the priesthood would later belong to them and Simeon would be given land within the land of the tribe of Judah, but they would not stay there in the southern kingdom and would abandon their brothers in the south to join the 10 northern tribes and would therefore be without a land that belonged to them).  While parts of these blessings and curses will continue throughout generations, we see that God will still use these dishonorable men for honorable purposes such as the tribe of Levi bringing forth Moses and Arron (remember Moses having a temper just like his ancestor Levi?) to lead God's people out of Egypt and to serve as the mediators between God and man as a tribe of priests.  Today we are told that every Christian is part of a royal priesthood not in the order of Aaron or even Levi, but in the order of Melchizedek--the royal priest that we studied about during the time of Abraham.  Part of our job is to be mediators between God and man and to help make peace and it's hard to do that when we want to take vengeance on our own.

One of the longer blessings here goes to Judah, and this is where we begin to see that God has chosen the tribe of Judah for the line of succession for Messiah.  Up to this point, we may have believed that God had chosen Joseph, but it is clear here that Judah will be a tribe of not just leaders, but kings, and that God's plan is that when the nation is one day ready for a king (which will not be for many hundreds of years) that the scepter never pass from the tribe of Judah.  We can see even here that Saul was never the right choice for king as he was from the wrong tribe--he was from the tribe of Benjamin, but David was from the tribe of Judah.  He was always the man that God wanted to be king and through David one day Jesus the King of Kings and Lord of Lords--the Lion of the Tribe of Judah would be born, not just to be King of Israel, but to be Lord of Heaven and Earth that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:10-11).

Jacob gives the blessing to Zebulun that his people will live by the sea and they will be a safe haven for ships.  Having land by the sea is a double-edged sword because it is good for business, but it also means that you are one of the first points of invasion from enemy forces that would come by sea.  We'll see that Zebulun is in the land we'll later know as Galilee during the time of Jesus where many of the people are fishermen and sea merchants by trade.  We'll even see prophecy about the Messiah later that says that the land of Zebulun and Naphtali will be a land of darkness (because they will be contaminated by the wickedness of the pagan Gentiles around them) but that out of the darkness will sine forth a great light--the Light of the World.  We see that the border of Zebulun's land will extend all the way to Sidon (this is a major city in modern-day Lebanon).

Not much is said of Issachar, though the description of him sounds much like the description of Ishmael that we heard earlier in Genesis where Ishmael was called "a wild donkey of a man" and that the would be strong and stubborn and force to be reckoned with.  Here it seems that Issachar would not be a wild donkey though but one that had been tamed and become very docile, and would be happy with wherever the grass was greener and this would lead to him becoming a servant of other nations.  We'll get more of an idea what this probably means when we get to the time of the Exile.

The tribe of Dan would be given wisdom to be judges and to judge the people of Israel, but he would be as dangerous to them as a venomous snake as Dan would lead the 10 northern tribes into idolatry and apostasy and is the only tribe of Israel that we see is cut off and not mentioned as part of the kingdom of God in the book of Revelation (kind of like Judas Iscariot of the 12 apostles).  Dan would be just as dangerous to his family as he was to their enemies as a snake strikes as anything that moves close to it.  The Lord longs for, desires and waits for the salvation of the tribe of Dan, but from what we read, that day does not come.

Almost nothing is said about the tribe of Gad other than they would live in a place frequently raided and they would become a people that would give pursuit and it sounds like they would not only take back what was theirs but raid the camps of the raiders.  As they would eventually live on the east side of the Jordan River they would not have the river as protection against invaders like many of the other tribes did (Reuben and half of the tribe of Manasseh also lived on the east side of the Jordan).  They would have the Ammorites to their east and the Moabites and Edomites to their south.and the Arameans (Syrians) and Hittites (ancient Lebanese people).  While all of Israel was surrounded by enemies, it would be those on the east side of the river that would have a particularly difficult time and have to help defend their brothers and drive away the raiders and bear the brunt of the losses.

The tribe of Asher would be a people that would be farmers that would grow rich, delicious food for themselves and all of the tribes of Israel.  They would also eventually live along the coast and people would come from far and wide to trade with them.

Naphtali also has little mentioned about him other than he would be like a doe that bears many fawns.  I assume this means that this tribe is going understand the commandment to "be fruitful and multiply" and take that job seriously.  They would eventually have a tribal land to the north bordering both Syria and Lebanon 

Now we get into a long blessing for Joseph--remember he doesn't have his own tribe because two have his sons have receive status as sons of Israel and would have their own tribes and tribal land in his place, but Joseph and his other sons would be blessed.  The tribe will be fruitful, probably referring both to descendants and the work of their hands and they will overflow beyond their natural borders like vineyard growing over the wall that tries to contain it.  God will defend him from the attacks of his enemies and given him the strength to remain strong and unbroken.  The Mighty One of Israel is promised to be his Shepherd and the Stone of Israel (a place of refuge and defense).  Jacob says that by the Lord Joseph would receive blessings from him from every conceivable place., and that his favor and blessing would not pass from Joseph and his descendants.

Last but not least is the tribe of Benjamin.  Through Jacob, God will identify them like ravenous wolves who will devour their prey and divide the spoil among themselves.  They are definitely a force to be feared and reckoned with throughout most of the Old Testament--even Saul (who would become the apostle Paul) came from this tribe and takes on some of these characteristics both in his being the one hunting down the early Christians and then later the one defending the Church from attacks from without and within.

One thing that I'd like to note is that when we get to the book of Joshua, it appears as if the people had forgotten these blessings and the land that some of them had been promised, and that's understandable as they've been through 400 years of slavery and I'm sure that division of the land into tribal regions wasn't the most important story to pass along to their children.  We'll see that the land is divided into regions and lots are cast (probably one of the reasons we call a piece of property a "lot") to decide which tribe would get which piece of the land and in every case the lot fell according to what God had already promised.  There was not a single instance where the promise that God made back here in Genesis 49 differed from what the descendants of these sons of Israel received in Joshua 14-21.  Much of the book of Joshua is the exact fulfillment of these promises and blessings.  Much of the rest of the Old Testament is the fulfillment of the "curses" that we see as the people continued to refuse to obey God even after they had received the land and God would have to use other kingdoms to discipline and sometimes even conquer His people and some of the people called by the name of the Lord would turn against their own brothers and ally themselves with the enemy or lead their brothers away from the Lord into the worship of false gods.  Some would completely give up or lose their homeland and others would be so overrun with paganism that you'd never know that the area on the east of the Sea of Galilee called the Decapolis would have ever belonged to the Jewish people.

Next time, we'll look at the death and burial of Jacob and the funeral meant for a king that was given to him by Joseph and the Pharaoh of Egypt.  After that, there will probably be one more blog about some final thoughts from Joseph summing up his life before his death and burial and the end of the book of Genesis.  I'd be interested to hear what you've learned and taken away from our study in the book of Genesis.  Feel free to join our Discord server (the invite link is in the navigation for this site) and discuss with others there your thoughts and questions, and feel free to join our small group meetings as we study The Gospel Project as it traces the gospel from Genesis through Revelation--a three-year journey that hits most of the main points of Scripture and reinforces theological truths.  While the small group time is mostly meant for those who are already Christians who are desiring to grow in their faith and knowledge of the Word of God, we encourage non-Christians who are truly seeking for the questions to Origins, Meaning, Morality, Destiny, and Identity to join our server and ask these questions and find a God that is big enough to deal with your questions, doubts and fears.  You may not always get the answers you want, but hopefully in our studies together you will find the truth of who God is, who you are, what your purpose and identity are, how you should live (knowing what's right and wrong), and your destiny--which hinges completely on your response to the gospel and what you believe by faith about Jesus, the Son of God.