Genesis/Bereshith 49: Jacob/Israel's Legacy and Last Farewell

 

Genesis/Bereshith 49

 

THE BLESSING OF JACOB

 

 

[EF]  Yaakov’s Testament and Death:  In this ancient piece of poetry, Yaakov addresses his sons, not as they are, but as they will be.  There is little resemblance, for instance, between the Binyamin as the beloved and protected youngest son of the Yosef story and the preying wolf of v.27, but the Benjaminites were later known for their military skills.  Scholars have therefore seen the entire poem as a retrojection of Israel as it came to be on the days of the Patriarchs.

 

As in the fuller Yosef narrative, the first three sons are quickly disqualified from active leadership, paving the way for the rise of Yehuda (the tribe from which sprang David and the royal house of Israel).  Despite this, Yosef still receives the richest blessing.

 

The chapter is textually among the most difficult in the Torah.  Many passages are simply obscure, leaving the translator to make at best educated guesses.

 

[RA]  AS WITH the life-stories of Moses and David, the extended narrative of Jacob and his sons (with the entire Patriarchal Tale behind it) is given literary closure by the introduction of a long poem.  Although the poem chiefly looks forward to the future tribal history of Jacob’s twelve sons, it begins by harking back to incidents in the preceding narrative and so preserves some sense of the sons as individual characters, not merely eponymous founders of the tribes.  There is debate among scholars as to whether the poem is a single composition or rather a kind of cento of poetic fragments about the fate of the various tribes that were in circulation in the early phase of Israelite history.  It is generally agreed, however, that this is one of the oldest extended texts in the Bible.  The representation of Levi as a tribe deprived of inheritance, with no hint of the sacerdotal function and concomitant privileges, suggests a very early date—conceivably even before the completion of the conquest and settlement, as Nahum Sarna has proposed.  The royal imagery on the other hand, associated with Judah seems to reflect a moment after David’s founding of his dynasty shortly before 1000 B.C.E.  In any case, the antiquity of the poem, as well as the fact that it may be a collage of fragments, means that there are words, phrases, and occasionally whole clauses that are not very well understood. Sometimes this is because of the use of a rare, presumably archaic, term, though there are also at least a few points where the received text looks defective.  Differences of interpretive opinion are such that in two instances there is no agreement about whether the language refers to animal, vegetable, or mineral!  At such junctures, a translator can do no more than an educated guess.  In any event, the poetic beauty and power of Jacob’s testament cannot be separated from its lofty antique style—its archaic grammatical forms and strange turns of syntax, its rare poetic terms, its animal and vegetal imagery, at some points recalling the old Ugaritic poems—and an English version should seek at least to intimate these qualities.

 

 

 

1 Now Yaakov called his sons and said: 

Gather round, that I may tell you 

what will befall you in the aftertime of days.

 

 

Jacob called unto his sons.  His other sons who were not present when Jacob blessed Ephraim and Manasseh.

 

shall befall you. Jacob’s words are prophetic anticipations of the future destinies of his children.  The counsel and benediction which Israel imparts to them are such that their descendants have remained ‘Children of Israel’ for all time.

 

in the end of days. i.e. in the distant future.  In the Prophets, this phrase is used to express the Messianic age.

 

2 Come together and hearken, sons of Yaakov, 

hearken to Yisrael your father.

 

 

The Blessing is in poetic form, and therefore marked by parallelism, or ‘thought rhythm’, which is a characteristic of all Hebrew poetry.  This verse forms an introduction to the main theme of the chapter.  Jacob demands their earnest attention because of the fateful message he has to convey to them.

 

[RA]  Assemble and hearken . . . hearken.  It is a common convention of biblical poetry to begin with a formal exhortation for those addressed to listen closely.  What is slightly odd about the opening line here is that “hearken” is repeated in the second half of the line instead of introducing a synonym like “give ear” (compare the beginning of Lamech’s poem, Genesis 4:23).

 

3 Re’uven,

my firstborn, you, 

my might, first-fruit of my vigor! 

Surpassing in loftiness, surpassing in force!

 

 

3-4.  REUBEN.  my first-born.  Reuben’s natural rights have been forfeited.  He has birth, dignity, opportunity; but no strength of character.  In the Scripture narrative, he appears as a man who begins good actions, but does not complete them.  Thus, he plans to save Joseph, and he actually prevents the murder, but Joseph is sold nevertheless.  Reuben’s descendants in Jewish history remain true to ancestral type.  When Deborah unfurled the banner of Israelitish independence in the days of the Judges, the tribes rallied round her.  In the camp of Reuben, however, there were great deliberations and mighty searchings of heart, but no action; see Judges v. 15.  Subsequently, the tribe of Reuben is rarely mentioned in Israel’s history.

 

my might. ‘As the first-born, Reuben is endowed with a superabundant vitality, which is the cause at once of his pre-eminence and his undoing’ (Skinner).

 

the excellency of dignity.  A Hebraism for ‘superior in dignity.’  Superiority in dignity and power belonged to the first-born.  Onkelos renders, ‘For thee it was provided to receive three portions, the right of first-born, the priesthood, and the kingdom.’  The first of these was given to Joseph, I Chron. V,1; the priesthood was given to Levi, Num. III,41; the kingly power or headship was allotted to Judah, see v. 8.

 

[RA] first yield of my manhood.  The word for “manhood,” ‘on, means “vigor,” but it is particularly associated with male potency.  “First yield,” rei’shit, is a word also used for crops.  The biological image of Reuben as the product of Jacob’s first inseminating seed sharpens the evocation in the next line of his violation of his father’s concubine.

 

4 Headlong like water-surpass no more!

For when you mounted your father’s bed,

then you defiled it-he mounted the couch!

 

 unstable as water.  Any breeze can ruffle its surface.  Or, ‘bubbling over like water,’ in uncontrolled vehemence of passion.  Reuben’s cardinal sin, says Jacob, was weakness of will, lack of self-control and firmness of purpose.

 

The Heb. word for ‘unstable’, pachaz,  means recklessness; the same root in Aramaic means ‘to be lascivious’.

 

have not thou the excellency.  i.e. ‘thou shalt forfeit thy privileges’ as the first-born.  None of the descendants of Reuben ever became Judge, Prophet, or leader.  Here Scripture stresses the idea that moral character is a more important factor than hereditary right.

 

he went up to my couch. The sudden change from the second tot he third person is due to Jacob’s loathing at the mere memory of Reuben’s offence; see on XXXV,22.

 

[EF] when you mounted . . .: Alluding to 35:21-22.

[RA] you’ll no more prevail! The verb here may rather mean “you’ll not remain” (or pun on that meaning)—a reference to the early disappearance of the tribe of Reuben, perhaps before the period of the monarchy.

 

the place where your father lay. The plural form used, mishkevei ‘avikha, has an explicitly sexual connotation, whereas the singualr mishkav can also mean simply a place where one sleeps.

you profaned my couch, you mounted!  The translation here emends ‘alah  (“he mounted”) to alita (“you mounted”), though there is some possibility that the archaic poetic style permitted this sort of abrupt switch in pronominal reference.

 

5 Shim’on and Levi, 

such brothers, 

wronging weapons are their ties-of-kinship!

 

5-7. SIMEON AND LEVI

Simeon and Levi are brethren.  In violence.  See XXXIV,26f.  Moffatt translates:  ;Simeon and Levi are a pair.’

weapons of violence their kinship.  The phrase is also rendered, ‘instruments of cruelty are in their habitations’ (Onkelos, Kimchi, and AV).  The reference is evidently to their dealings in Shechem; see XXXIV.

 

[EF] ties-of-kinship: Hebrew obscure. Others use “weapons,” “swords” (B-R uses “mattocks”).

 

[RA]  their trade.  The meaning of mekheroteyhem is highly uncertain.  The translation here conjecturally links the term with the root m-kh-r, “to sell.”

 

6 To their council may my being never come,

in their assembly may my person never unite!

For in their anger they kill men,

in their self-will they maim bulls.

 

council. Or, ‘secret’l i.e. secret confederacy.

 

my glory. i.e. my soul; as in Psalm XVI,9. What lofty conception of both glory and soul, to make them synonymous as the Heb. language does!

 

men. The Heb. is in the singular, the word being used collectively.

they houghed oxen. A figure of vindictive destructiveness such as is recounted in XXXIV,28,29.  To ‘hough’ is to sever certain sinews and so render the animal helpless.  The mutilation of animals is not recorded in that chapter.  Many Versions therefore render, ‘they digged down a wall’ referring to the destrucgion of Shechem.  The Heb. words for ‘ox’ and ‘wall’ differ only in one dot.

 

[EF] in their anger they kill men: See 34:25-26.

 

[RA] let me never set foot.  Literally, “let my person not come.”

their assembly my presence shun. The Hebrew says literally, “in their assembly let my presence not join,” but this is clumsy as English, and in any case the point is that Jacob  is ostracizing the two brothers.’

 

they tore down ramparts. With many critics, the translation here reads shur, a poetic term for “wall,” instead of shor, “ox,” as the Masoretic Text has it.  The verb, if it refers to oxen, would mean “to maim” or “to hamstring.”  It was sometimes the ancient practice to hamstring the capture warhorses of an enemy, but it would have been foolish to hamstring captured oxen, which could be put to peaceful use.  Moreover, since Jacob is speaking of the massacre at Shechem, the narrative there explicitly noted that the cattle and other livestock were carried off, not maimed.

 

7 Damned be their anger, that it is so fierce!

Their fury, that it is so harsh!

I will split them up in Yaakov, 

I will scatter them in Yisrael.

 

cursed be their anger.  Jacob does not curse them but their sin, of which he could not have given a stronger condemnation.  It is characteristic of the untrustworthiness of the Samaritan text that instead of reading ‘Cursed be their anger, it has ‘How splendid is their anger!’

 

I will divide them in Jacob.  Fulfilled by the intermingling of the Simeonites in the inheritance of Judah (see Josh. XIX,1), and by the dispersion of the tribe of Levi among the other tribes of Israel.

 

8 Yehuda,

you-your brothers will praise you, 

your hand on the neck of your enemies! 

Your father’s sons will bow down to you.

 

8-12. JUDAH

Contrast the characterization of Reuben with Jacob’s jubilant praise of Judah.  Unlike Reuben, Judah has neither birthright nor the dignity or opportunity of the firstborn, but he has both strength and consistency of purpose. He knows his enemy, and—whether it be a person, an evil, or a cause—his hand is upon the enemy’s neck.  Capable indeed of falling into grievous error and sin, he is yet true at heart.  Judah’s character fits him to take the lead and rule.  He is the worthy ancestor of David, Isaiah and Nehemiah, the father of the royal tribe that led in the conquest of the Promised Land.

 

Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise.  Foretells Judah’s military glory in subduing the enemies of his brethren, the Philistines and Edomites, resulting in the acknowledgement of Judah as the national leader, or king.

 

[EF] Yehuda . . . enemies:  Heb. yehuda/atta yodukha ahikha/yadekha al oref oyevekha.

 

[RA]  Judah, you, shall your brothers acclaim. This line in the Hebrew is a fanfare of sound-play, including a pun on Judah’s name, Yehudah, ‘atah yodukha ‘aekha.  Up to this point, Jacob’s testament to his first three sons has actually been nothing but curses.  Rashi neatly catches the transitional force of “Judah, you . . .” when he notes, “Inasmuch as he had heaped condemnations on the previous ones, Judah began to back away and his father called to him with words of encouragement, ‘Judah, you are not like them.'”  Judah now displaces the three brothers born before him, and his claim to preeminence (“your brothers accalim”) is founded on his miltiary prowess (“your hand on your enemies nape”).  All this has a distinctly Davidic coloration.”Acclaim” is a more precise equivalent for the verb in context than the usual “praise” because what is involved is recognition of Judah’s royal status.

 

9 A lion’s whelp, Yehuda- 

from torn-prey, my son, you have gone up! 

He squats, he crouches, 

like the lion, like the king-of-beasts,

who dares rouse him up?

 

 lion’s whelp.  According to the Midrash, the emblem of the tribe of judah was a lion.  The metaphor suggests the vigour and nobility of Judah and his offspring; and the habitual swiftness and force of their military movements.

 

thou art gone up. The emblem of kingship.

 

from between his feet.  The figure is that of an Oriental king sitting, with the ruler’s staff between his knees; as can be seen on Assyrian and Persian monuments.

 

as long as men come to Shiloh.  Heb. ad ki yabo shiloh; ilit. ‘until Shiloh come”; or, ‘until that which is his shall come’; i.e. Judah’s rule shall continue till he comes to his own, and the obedience of all the tribes is his.  This translation may also mean that when the tribe of Judah has come into its own, the sceptre shall be taken out of its hands.

 

The explanation of this verse, especially of the Hebrew words is very difficult.  Some Jewish commentators have given it a Messianic meaning.  For the interpretation that it has been given in the Church, please read the subsequent post titled: 

Genesis/Bereshith 49:10 – ALLEGED CHRISTOLOGICAL REFERENCES IN SCRIPTURE.

 

the peoples. i.e. the tribes of Israel, as in Deut. XXXIII,3,19.

[EF] lion:  Eventually the symbol of the (Judahite) monarchy.

[RA] from the prey, O my son, you mount. Amos Funkenstein has astutely suggested to me that there is an ingenious double meaning here.  The Hebrew could also be construed as “from the prey of my son you mounted,” introducing a shadow reference to Judah’s leading part in the plan to pass off Joseph as dead.  When the bloodied tunic was brought to Jacob, he cried out, “Joseph is torn to shreds” (tarof toraf), and the term for “prey” here is teref.

 

you mount. This is the same verb that is used above for Reuben’s act of sexual violation, but here it refers to the lion springing up from the prey it has slain.  The proposal that the verb means “to grow” is forced, with little warrant elsewhere in the Bible.

the king of beasts.  this English kenning is necessary in the poetic parallelism because there are no English synonyms for “lion.” whereas biblical Hebrew has four different terms for the same beast.

 

10 The scepter shall not depart from Yehuda, 

nor the staff-of-command from between his legs,

until they bring him tribute, 

-the obedience of peoples is his.

 

[EF] until they bring . . .: Hebrew difficult; others use “until Shiloh comes.”  The phrase is an old and unsolved problem for interpreter and translator alike.

 

[RA] mace.  The Hebrew meoqeq refers to a ruler’s long staff, a clear parallel to “scepter.”  There is no reason to construe it, as some have done, as a euphemism for the phallus, though the image of the mace between the legs surely suggests virile power in political leadership.

 

that tribute to him may come. This is a notorious crux.  The Masoretic Text seems to read “until he comes to Shiloh,” a dark phrase that has inspired much messianic interpretation.  The present translation follows an exegetical tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages, which breaks up the word “Shiloh” and vocalizes it differently as shai lo.

 

11 He ties up his foal to a vine,

his young colt to a crimson tendril; 

he washes his raiment in wine, 

his mantle in the blood of grapes;

 

Instead of the translation, ‘Binding his foal unto the vine (also AV and RV), which would make Judah out to be a fool, render:

‘Harnessing his foal for (the produce of) one vine,

‘And his ass’s colt for (the produce of) one choice vine’–

which brings out in a striking figure the fruitfulness of Judah’s land: one ass is required to carry away the produce of one vine; and even one choice vine yields enough fruit for the load of an ass’s colt. This translation, founded on the interpretation of the Rabbis, is plainly indicated in Rashi and Rashbam; yet it has been overlooked by subsequent commentaries (Marcus Jastrow).

choice vine.  Heb. sorek, produced sweet grapes of superior quality. Grapes are to be abundant that the people of Judah might wash their garments in them.

 

[EF] colt: Of a donkey.

 

[RA] He binds to the vine his ass. The hyperbole has been explained most plausibly by Abraham ibn Ezra, “The yield of his vineyards will be so abundant that his ass can turn aside to the vine and he won’t care if it eats the grapes.”  this explanation jibes nicely with the next image of washing garments in wine—the wine will be so plentiful that it can be treated as water.

the blood of the grape.  This vivid poetic epithet for wine, with its intensifying effect, is reminiscent of the Ugaritic kenning for wine, “blood of the tree,” and hence a token of the stylistic antiquity of the poem.

 

12 his eyes, darker than wine,

his teeth, whiter than milk.

 

his eyes shall be red with wine.  This rendering is absurd.  According to it, Judah’s eyes are red from excessive drinking, and Jacob’s blessing is that judah should be a drunkard!  The word rendered ‘red’, however, means ‘sparkling’ (Septuagint, Gunkel, Gressman); and the correct translation of the verse is: ‘his eyes are more sparkling than wine.’

 

his teeth white with milk’  Does drinking milk produce white teeth?  The correct translation (Septuagint, Vulgate, Saadyah, Jastrow) is, ‘his teeth are whiter than milk’.

 

[RA] O eyes that are darker than wine.  The Hebrew, like this English version, gives no pronoun references for these striking images, though they presumably refer to Judah, whose descendants will flourish in beauty in the midst of their viticultural abundance.  The word for “darker,” akhlili, is still another rare poetic term, cognate with the Akkadian elelu “to be dark.”

 

13 Zevulun, 

on the shore of the sea he dwells;

he is a haven-shore for boats, 

his flank upon Tzidon.

 

13. ZEBULUN.  The favourable geographical position of Zebulun’s territory is described.

 

a shore for ships. To which they may come in safety.

 

Zidon.  The actual territory of Zebulum stretched from the Sea of Galilee to Mt. Carmel, close under Tyre and Zidon.

 

[EF] Tzidon:  Sidon, the important Phoenician city (north of Israel).

 

14 Yissakhar, 

a bone-strong donkey,

crouching among the fire-places.

 

14-15. ISSACHAR

large-boned ass. Indicating great physical power.

 

[RA] hearths.  The term occurs only here and in Judges 5:16.  Because of the pastoral setting of the latter text, it is frequently construed as “sheepfolds,” but the verbal stem from which it appears to derive means “to set a pot on the fire.”

 

15 When he saw how good the resting-place was, 

and how pleasant was the land, 

he bent his shoulder to bearing 

and so became a laboring serf.  

 

A resting-place.  As opposed to the wandering life of nomads (Ryle).

 

task work. Or, ‘tribute.’  Issachar, possessed of rich territory, preferred rather to submit to tribute than to leave his ploughshare and take up the sword.  See Deut. XXXIII,18.  Zunz translates ‘and yieldeth himself to the service of the labourer.’

 

 [EF]  laboring serf:  The Hebrew mas ‘oved denotes forced labor.

 

 

16 Dan,

his people will mete-out-judgment, 

(to all) of Israel’s branches together.

 

16-18.  DAN

shall judge.  Or, ‘shall defend,’ or, ‘avenge.’  Onkelos understood this to refer to the tribe of Dan in the days of Samson (Judg. XV,20).

his people. The tribe of Dan.

 

[EF] mete-out-judgment:  Others use “will endure.”

 

[RA] Dan, his folk will judge.  Dan has always been construed as the subject of the verb “judge” (or “govern”), not its object.  But Hebrew grammar makes it equally possible to read “Dan” as object of the verb, and that would explain the otherwise obscure second clause: in historical fact, the tribe of Dan, far from assuming a role of leadership, was obliged to migrate from south to north.  Despite its marginal existence, the Israelite people will judge or govern it as one of Israel’s tribes.

 

17 May Dan be a snake on the wayside, 

a horned-viper on the path, 

who bites the horse’s heels 

so that his rider tumbles backward.

 

a horned snake.  Is small, but highly venomous; it coils itself in the sand and, if disturbed, darts out upon any passing animal.  Dan will prove dangerous to his foes by ambuscades and guerilla warfare.

 

[RA] Let Dan be a snake on the road.  The sudden lethal attack from below on the roadside is an image of the tactic of ambush in guerilla warfare adopted against invaders by the Danite fighters.  Again, the image suggests that this tribe, unlike the others, did not enjoy the security of fortified settlement.

 

18 I wait-in-hope for your deliverance, O YHVH!

 

I wait for Thy salvation. Is probably intended as part of the blessing bestowed upon Dan, who was in the most exposed position among all the tribes of Israel.

 

Thy salvation. i.e. deliverance wrought by Thee.

 

[EF] I wait-in-hope . . .: Either a deathbed cry of possibly the cry of a falling rider (see the preceding line) (Ehrlich).

 

19 Gad, 

goading robber-band will goad him, 

yet he will goad at their heel.

 

19.  GAD

a troop shall troop. There is here, as in previous verses, a play upon the name.  Perhaps the translation should be ‘a raiding band raids him, but he will band himself against their heel’.

Gad succeeded in repelling the Ammonites, Moabites, and Arameans, who were constantly raiding his borders.  Jepththah was of this tribe.

 

[EF]  goad:  Lit. “attack”; a play on “Gad” (Heb. gad gedud yegudennu).

 

[RA] Gad shall be goaded by raiders. The sound-play in the Hebrew is gad gedud yegudenu.

 

yet he shall goad their heel. The phrase may be a reminiscence of “and you shall bite his heel,” which is addressed to the serpent in the Garden.  There would be a carryover, then, from the snake imagery of the preceding lines.  The snake, one should keep in mind, is not “demonic” but an image of darting, agile, lethal assault.

 

20 Asher, 

his nourishment is rich, 

he gives forth king’s dainties.

 

20.  ASHER

Asher.  The name Asher means ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ (see XXX,13); and this meaning is reflected in the blessing bestowed upon him.  The land of Asher was prosperous or happy; cf. Arabia Felix.

 

royal dainties. Delicacies fit for the table of kings.  The allusion is probably to an export trade carried on by the men of Asher.

 

[RA]  Asher’s bread.  The Masoretic Text reads “from Asher, his bread,” but several ancient versions, quite plausibly, attach the initial consonant mem (“from”) to the end of the preceding word ‘aqev (“heel”), turning it into “their heel.”

 

21 Naftali, 

a hind let loose,

he who gives forth lovely fawns.

 

21.  NAPHTALI

hind let loose.  An image of swiftness and grace in movement.

he giveth goodly words. Refers to the tribe’s reputation for eloquence, and the great victory of Barak, a Naphtalite, which was followed by the glorious Song of Deborah (Kimchi).  Another translation is, “Napthtali is a slender terebinth, which putteth forth goodly branches.’ Joseph, too (next verse), is compared to a vine.

 

[RA] lovely fawns.  The Hebrew ‘imrei shafer is in doubt.  The translation follows one prevalent conjecture in deriving the first word from the Aramaic ‘imeir, which usually means “lamb.”

 

22 Young wild-ass, 

Yosef, 

young wild-ass along a spring,

donkeys along a wall.

 

22-26.  JOSEPH

Jacob reserves his softest and most loving accents for Joseph, who united whatever is best and noblest in both Reuben and Judah.  He is the man of vision, the man of dreams; but to this he joins moral and spiritual strength in all the vicissitudes of life.  He is the ideal son, the ideal brother, the ideal servant, the ideal administrator.  His character and story have from of old been held to be typical of the character and story of Israel.  Like Joseph, the Jew has been the dreamer of the ages, dreaming Israel’s dream of universal justice and peace and brotherhood. LIke Joseph, he has everywhere been the helpless victim of the hatred of his step-brethren, hatred that drove him from home and doomed him to Exile.  In that Exile, he has, like Joseph, times without number resisted the Great Temptation of disloyalty to the God of his fathers.  In the dreams of Joseph, the sun, the moon, the eleven stars bowed down to him.  It is the stars that bow to him, and not he to the stars. This is characteristic of both Joseph and Israel. Says Rabbi Yochanan . . . An Israelite should be ashamed to blame his star, his environment, or any outward circumstance for his moral downfall or his religious apostasy.  Man is captain of his own soul; and wherever there is a will to Judaism, there is a way to lead the Jewish life.

 

by a fountain. Cf. Psalm I,3; the proximity of water is a necessary condition, if the tree is to grow and bear fruit.

 

[RA] A fruitful son. The morphology of the reiterated noun in this line is so peculiar that some scholars have imagined a reference to branches, others to a wild ass.  There is little philological warrant for the former, and the connection between the term used here, porat, and pere’, “wild ass,” seems strained (The main argument for the wild ass is that it preserves the animal imagery, but there are several other tribes in the poem that have no animal icons.) A link between porat and the root p-r-h, “to be fruitful” is less of a grammatical stretch, and is encouraged by Joseph’s play on that same root in naming his son Ephraim.  Joseph and Judah, as the dominant tribes of the north and the south respectively, get far more elaborate attention in the poem than do any of their brothers.

 

daughters strode.  This is another crux because the verb “strode” appears to be in the feminine singular.  But there are good grounds to assume that the verbal suffix ah, which in normative grammar signals third-person feminine singular perfect tense, was also an archaic third-person plural feminine form.  There are a number of instances in which the consonantal texgt (ketiv) shows this form with a plural subject and the Masoretes correct it in the qeri (the indicated pronunciation) to normative grammar: e.g. Deuteronomy 21:7, “Our hands did not shed [ketiv:shafkhah] this blood.”  Without emendation, then, the text suggests that Joseph has the twin blessing of fruitfulness and military security.  The young women of the tribe can walk in safety alongside the rampart because they will be protected by Joseph’s valorous skill in battle (verses 23-24).

 

by a rampart.  This is the same word as the one at the end of verse 6.  There is scant warrant for extending it metonymically to “hillside,” as some translators have done.

 

23 Bitterly they shot at him,

the archers assailed him,

 

the archers.  His brethren.

 

dealt bitterly.  Harassed by hostile action.  In spite of attack, the strength of Joseph and his descendants is unimpaired, because the Almighty is with him.

 

24 yet firm remained his bow, 

and agile stayed his arms and hands- 

by means of the hands of Yaakov’s Champion, 

up there, 

the Shepherd, the Stone of Yisrael.

 

abode firm. i.e. continued strong.

 

made supple. Harassed by hostile action.  In spite of attack, the strength of Joseph and his descendants is unimpaired, because the Almighty is with him.

 

by the hands. Indicating the source of Joseph’s salvation.

the Mighty One of Jacob. A title of God.  see Is. I,24.

from thence. From the Mighty One of Jacob.

 

the Stone of Israel. A rare parallel to the better known ‘Rock of Israel’.

 

[EF]  arms and hands:  Lit. “arms of his hands.”

 

[RA] taut was his bow,/his arms ever-moving.  There is some doubt about “taut,” though the context makes this a reasonable educated guess.  There is also some dispute over the verb represented here as “ever-moving,” but its likely literal meaning is “to move about rapidly,” “to be nimble.”

 

through the hands. This picks up the previous phrase, referring to Joseph, which is literally, “the arms of his hands” (unless “of his hands” is a scribal slip, a dittography of the next word in the text).  In any case, the idea is that the hands of the human warrior are given strength by God’s hands.

 

through the name. Along with some of the ancient versions, the translation here reads mishem for the Masoretic misham, “from there,” which is obscure.

 

25 By your father’s God- 

may he help you, 

and Shaddai,

may he give-you-blessing: 

Blessings of the heavens,from above,

blessings of Ocean crouching below,

blessings of breasts and womb!

 

Three blessings are mentioned.

 

blessings of heaven. Rain and dew, sunshine and wind.

the deep. The subterranean reservoir of waters beneath, from which springs fertility to the soil.

the breasts. The fruitfulness of the familly.

 

[EF] Shaddai:  Once again connected to fertility (note the content of the following lines). give-you-blessing: Just as Yaakov had blessed Yosef’s sons, so Yosef is the only one of the twelve brothers to whom Yaakov applies the term.

 

[RA] blessings of breasts and womb.  The fertility of the female body is aligned with the fertility of creation, the heavens aboe and the deep below—a correspondence not lost on the bawdy fourteenth-century Hebrew poet Emanuel of Rome, who exploited this verse in an erotic poem.

 

26 May the blessings of your father transcend 

the blessings of mountains eternal, 

the bounds of hills without age. 

May they fall upon the head of Yosef, 

on the crown of the consecrated-one among his brothers.

 

are mighty beyond. The verse states that the blessings received by Jacob surpass the blessings vouchsafed to Jacob’s fathers.  Jacob now bestows these enhanced blessings upon Joseph, thereby making him the heir both of himself and of his ancestors.

unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.  As high above the blessings bestowed on Jacob’s father as the hills are above the plains.

 

prince. lit. ‘that is separate from his brethren’, i.e. apart from eminent, among his brethren.

 

[EF]  mountains:  Reading hararet for the traditional Hebrew horei, “parents” on the basis of Hab. 3:6.

[RA] the blessings of timeless heights,/the bounty of hills everlasting.  The Masoretic Text is not really intelligible at this point, and this English version follows the Septuagint for the first part of the verse, which has the double virtue of coherence and of resembling several similar parallel locutions elsewhere in biblical poetry.  Instead of the Masoretic Text’s horai ‘ad (“my forebears” [?] “until” [?], the Septuagint has the equivalent in Greek of the idiomatic harerei ‘ad (“timeless heights”).  The noun ta’awat that immediately follows may also reflect a defective text but it could mean “that which is desired,” hence, “bounty” or “riches.”  The apparent sense of the whole line is: the blessings granted Joseph and his fathers will be even greater than the blessings manifested throughout time in the natural world, as seen in the verdant, fruit-bearing hillsides.

the brow. The Hebrew is actually a poetic synonym for “head” (something like “pate”), but “brow” is used here for the sake of the English idiom of blessings, or honors, resting on that part of the anatomy.

 

27 Binyamin, 

a wolf that tears-to-pieces! 

In the morning he devours prey, 

and then, in the evening, divides up the spoil.

 

27.  BENJAMIN

a wolf that raveneth.  Or, ‘that teareth,’ referring tot he warlike character of the tribe; see Judg. v, 15 and XX,16.  

 

[RA] Benjamin, ravening wolf.  The last brief vignette of the poem, for the youngest of the twelve sons, is one of its sharpest images of death-dealing animals, and later biblical accounts, especially in Judges, indicate that the tribe of Benjamin was renowned for its martial prowess.

the spoils. The rare noun ‘ad has been variously construed as “prey” (because of the wolf image) and “enemy,” and the compactness of the line even leaves doubt as to whether it is a noun and not an adverb (revocalizing ‘ad as ‘od,  “still”).  But both its sole other occurrence in the Bible (Isaiah 33:23) and the poetic parallelism argue for the sense of spoils.

 

28 All these are the tribes of Israel, twelve, 

and this is what their father spoke to them; 

he blessed them, 

according to what belonged to each as blessing, he blessed them.

 

twelve tribes. Joseph, and not his sons, receives the blessings.  Jacob in blessing his sons was at the same time blessing the future tribes.

 

every one. Received his appropriate blessing.  The future would prove the prophetic nature of their father’s benediction.

[EF] tribes:  Heb. shevatim, “staffs,” which symbolized the tribes.

 

29 And he commanded them, saying to them:

I am now about to be gathered to my kinspeople;

bury me by my fathers,

in the cave that is in the field of Efron the Hittite,

 

in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite. Jacob in his last words to his sons exhibits an elaborate consciousness of the legal transaction between his grandfather and Ephron the Hittite.  Like the account of the purchase in chapter 25, he emphasizes the previous owner, the exact location of the property, and the fact that it was acquired as a permanent holding.  Thus, at the end of Genesis, legal language is used to resume a great theme—that Abraham’s offspring are legitimately bound to the land God promised them, and that the descent into Egypt is no more than a sojourn.

 

30 at the cave that is in the field of Makhpela, that faces Mamre, in the land of Canaan. 

-Avraham had acquired that field from Efron the Hittite, as a burial holding.

31 There they buried Avraham and Sara his wife, 

there they buried Yitzhak and Rivka his wife, 

there I buried Lea-

 

[EF] Lea: Not called “my wife.”  Again the old feelings remain vivid.

 

32 an acquisition, the field and the cave that is in it, from the Sons of Het.

 

purchased from the children of Heth. With their knowledge and consent (Abarbanel).  Joseph, having been away from Canaan for so many years receives explicit directions as to the spot where his father is to be buried.  This verse implies a deed of purchase.

 

33 When Yaakov had finished commanding his sons,

he gathered up his feet onto the bed and expired, 

and was gathered to his kinspeople.

 

gathered up his feet.  He had been sitting; he now lay down in bed.

and was gathered unto his people. This passage shows that not burial of the body is meant but the soul’s departure to join the souls of those who had gone before.