Genesis 49:1-18

Hey, welcome back, and happy Monday as we continue through Genesis.
We move into the 49th chapter today.
And this one’s probably going to take us a little while.
This is a really interesting chapter.
It is a bridge toward the end of the story,
but it is also a bridge to the beginning
of the kind of national story of Israel,
of Jacob.
And so remember here that Jacob is nearing the end of his life.
He’s already claimed that.
And so he calls his sons to him.
And this chapter is really interesting,
Michael.
It does sort of fit a pattern we’ve
seen before in Genesis,
which is a blessing of a child or children.
But this one, there’s also a little bit more–
I guess we’ve seen instances of this too.
There’s also certain prediction in this.
It’s kind of an unfolding of what is going to happen.
And keep in mind that each of these named sons
becomes either unto themselves or responsible
for a tribe of Israel.
And so part of the pronouncement here,
part of the blessing
and part of the description is the role
that that tribe plays in the upcoming history of Israel.
Now, at this point in the story,
we don’t know where that’s going.
But looking back,
those who read these words
saw in them very vivid descriptions of what
these tribes were known for,
what these people groups had
been associated with.
And so there is a sense in which this is a very descriptive kind of chapter.
Yeah, right.
So pay attention here as we look through this chapter
to some of those themes that we have seen before.
The idea of blessing,
as you say, as it’s related to children has existed
through the whole story.
But that finds its source in the original blessing
given to Abram.
And what’s interesting about that is that fundamentally,
the text here is showing us in some ways with the ending of Jacob’s life
as he comes to the last stages here.
He is going to represent for us the continuance or furtherance of the blessing,
which as we know now has ping ponged around.
It’s been unexpected in the way that God has worked.
But yet,
as you say, Clint, as it looks ahead
towards the sons, who later are going
to have substantial impact in terms of the tribes,
each one both represents how the blessing will continue
through these tribes, but also how not every tribe stands equal.
I mean, the tribes as history goes on,
some will receive more attention by the Old Testament
biblical text.
Others will,
in some ways, fall off and not
be mentioned hardly at all.
So even in Jacob’s words here,
we are beginning to see both a denouement
of the beginning of a conclusion of this Genesis
text, of the beginning.
But simultaneously,
Clint,
we are, like you’re saying,
getting a little bit of a foreshadowing of what will be.
So the text is–
it’s showing us the ways in which these things are related.
They dovetail together.
And I think that’s partly what makes it interesting,
though,
on the other hand,
it’s also very long.
We’ve not seen a blessing of near this length
thus far in the book of Genesis that I can think of.
So that also makes it impactful and substantial.
Yeah, it’s 12-fold.
And what we’ll do is go through this character by character
and kind of stop and talk as we go
and try to give you examples of what this means.
And some of these are not the words
that sound typical of the kind of things
you’d hope a father says to a son.
But we’ll get into it here.
Verse 1, chapter 49,
Jacob called his sons.
He said, “Gather around that I may tell you
what will happen to you in the days to come.
Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob,
listen to Israel, your father.
Reuben,
you are my firstborn,
my might and the first fruit of my vigor,
excelling in rank and excelling in power.
Unstable as water, you will no longer excel.
Because you went up onto your father’s bed,
then you defiled it.
You went up onto my couch.”
So as we come to the oldest here,
Reuben, remember, is impulsive and this harkens back to the story
where we’re told that Reuben actually produces a child
with one of his father’s concubines.
And so you’ve defiled my bed,
you’ve defiled the family.
Unstable as water,
you shall no longer excel.
And so the prophetic pronouncement here
upon the tribe of Reuben is that they will not stand out.
They will be average.
They will be,
I won’t say unimportant,
but they won’t be remembered.
They won’t be exceptional.
They will simply be a part of the mix.
Unstable as water.
So again,
you have excelled,
but that’s over.
That will not carry into the future.
And that’s a tough pronouncement upon an oldest son.
We have seen an expectation
where the oldest son is to receive blessing.
We’ve not seen that happen,
but we’ve seen it expected in several stories.
And again,
this isn’t that.
Yeah, so if you think that this is a tough start,
hang with us ’cause it’s about to get even tougher.
But yeah,
realistically,
note the direct connection.
Because of this thing that you have done,
then this thing will be true moving forward.
There is a kind of cause effect that is imagined here.
And the thing that I think was implicit
in say that original story of Reuben now becomes explicit.
That the choice that Reuben made
becomes in some ways parabolic for his descendants
or it affects the blessing as it moves forward for him.
So what was true in microcosm is now true
when you look at it from the much larger
historical meta kind of perspective.
And that happens here in the first one.
And you’re gonna see that reflected here
as we look towards the ones that follow here
as we look at Simeon and Levi.
Yeah, interesting here.
The next blessing or the next part of the blessing is a pairing.
Simeon and Levi are treated together.
Some have suspected that maybe that means
that they have been subsumed into another tribe.
Levi essentially becomes the priestly tribe.
Simeon kind of goes away,
possibly folded into the tribe of Judah.
But let’s hear what Jacob says about Simeon and Levi.
Simeon and Levi are brothers.
Weapons of violence are their swords.
May I never come into their counsel.
May I not be joined to their company.
For in their anger, they killed men.
And at their whim,
the hamstrung oxen,
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.
So here again, we have some harsh criticism.
Remember Simeon and Levi attack the city
when the men have been circumcised
after the daughter Dinah is raped.
They are impulsive,
they are violent.
They are prone to rage here.
This bit about they’re cruel to animals.
At their whim, they hamstrung oxen,
which if you would say that attacking men might be necessary,
the harming of animals, I think
pretty much conclusively through history
is seen as an expression of being broken,
of being not right.
And so here,
these are men of violence.
And again, listen to their father’s words.
May I never come into their counsel
and may I not be joined in their company.
They will be divided and scattered in Israel.
So again, a harsh prediction for two more of the sons.
Yeah, one just quick note,
few things that you might not know right off the bat.
One being that these two tribes that come from them,
first Simeon as the conquest happens later on
in the next few books of the Old Testament,
Simeon very much that tribe kind of drops off the radar.
So they don’t inherit the promised land
as the rest of the tribes do.
And then Levi through an interesting twist,
the tribe of Levi becomes the priestly class in Israel.
And so they too actually don’t end up inheriting land
because of their special status of being priests.
So interestingly,
both the tribe of Simeon and Levi
both move forward in the story
without inheritance of the land.
And the reason for that now directly connected
to their harshness, their violence, and the thing that was perpetrated by these two brothers.
Yeah, and that’s this line,
they will be scattered.
In other words, they won’t have a place.
And when you think about throughout this whole narrative of Genesis,
how important land has been,
how important the idea of a place
and how extremely important it will become
in the next story of Exodus when they talk about
and they seek out the literally quote,
promised land.
And to be told that they’re scattered
and that they won’t have property
is a very damning prophecy on these two brothers.
Yeah, I think Clint,
well, yeah, let’s keep going for time here.
Okay,
so now we get to in some ways,
there are probably two high points of this.
There are some mid points,
but these probably two high points,
this is one of them,
Judah, who now stands in line
as the oldest and these three brothers ahead of him
have essentially been cast out.
So listen,
we have a very different take here in Judah.
Judah, your brother shall praise you,
your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies,
your father’s son shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s well.
From the prey, my son,
you have gone up.
He crouches down,
stretches out like a lion,
like a lioness who dares rouse him up.
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 people is his.
Binding his fold 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.
His eyes are darker than wine,
his teeth whiter than milk.
So a couple of things that are subtle here,
this is the tribe of Judah is really the major tribe
of the story, particularly in the southern kingdom of Judah.
Judah is the dominant tribe
in a significant portion of Israel’s story.
And so we see here reference to that.
Your brothers will praise you.
In other words, you’ll stand out among the tribes.
You are a lion’s well.
The scepter shall not depart.
In other words, the ruler shall not depart.
Where does David make his royal city?
In Jerusalem, which is in the property,
the territory of Judah.
So lots of references here
to Judah’s eventual role in the life of the people.
You may know this,
but as we trace the lineage of Christ,
that the lion of the tribe of Judah is one of the things
that is said about the Messiah
and ultimately predicted of Jesus
who is in that lineage of Judah.
This is a much different tone,
a much higher praise than we’ve seen of the first three.
Right, well, and that’s reflective of what we know,
that of course King David comes from the lion of Judah.
He is going to become one of the most prominent figures
in the Old Testament.
Certainly
he himself, a lion of the Old Testament.
What we discover in Judah is once again,
a character who had a far more sort of courageous
and in some ways upright
character kind of telling
in this Genesis story is now reflective
of that that is going to be bore out by his descendants.
This idea of the vines,
it points us towards this idea of agricultural wealth
that in the
time of Judah’s reign and stability in the north
that there would be substantial agricultural kind of
ability
is ultimately something that will be a blessing
to those who are in that family.
So once again, it’s just pointing us towards what it is
to be as you look ahead to the future here.
Yeah, and this idea of wine is tied to the idea
of fertility, not only as Michael said,
agriculturally,
but in terms of multiplying.
We’ve seen that consistently through Genesis.
The statement of the covenant is be fruitful and multiply.
We saw that all the way back in Genesis
and throughout God has promised Abraham,
Isaac, and now Jacob and Joseph,
your descendants will be as multitude
as the sayings of the sea.
So the idea of fertility is important.
We move on to very short,
very simple.
Zebulun shall settle at the shore of the sea,
shall be a haven for ships,
and his border shall be at Sidon.
Not much to say about that.
Zebulun becomes a sea people.
This is the first,
I would say Michael,
this is the first neutral kind of prophecy we’ve had
that there’s nothing in this that
indicates Jacob feels pro or con
about what will happen for Zebulun.
He’s going to be a shore people, a sea people,
a port for Israel.
His people will occupy that land,
but that’s not spoken of here as either good or bad.
No, and I’m trying to think,
did he come up in the text that we’ve studied?
I mean, have we really learned anything?
I think he’s the first on this list
that we can really say
that we’ve really not seen pop up in the text yet.
So that both the size of the blessing
as well as the time given thus far are probably reflective.
And that’s probably also true here of Issachar, right?
Yeah, I would say the same thing.
Let’s just read that quick.
Issachar is a strong donkey,
lying down between the sheepfolds.
He saw that a resting place was good
and that land was pleasant.
So he bowed his shoulder to the burden
and became a slave at forced labor.
An agricultural people,
not warriors,
not rulers,
of stubborn people.
There’s maybe a hint here of lazy,
although that is kind of balanced
by that last part of the verse.
He bowed his shoulder to the burden
and became a slave at forced labor.
It’s not exactly sure that this,
I would argue that this is probably on the whole neutral.
It doesn’t maybe sound great,
but I don’t think it’s bad either.
I think it’s simply saying,
yeah, Issachar’s going to do his thing.
He’s gonna hunker down.
He’s gonna work the land
and his people,
that’s gonna be their lot.
Yeah, and not to editorialize here,
but notice how very diverse the blessing is
in its different branches.
It’s fascinating if you look at this
and see how it’s spreading out.
You have one who is
named to be successful
and is going to be blessed with great material wealth.
And then others who aren’t even gonna inherit the land.
And then now you have some of these characters.
One is known as a seafaring group of people
and then another are going to be forced to slaves.
So even in that conception
that the blessing is being passed on,
we need to be careful to not insert into that blessing,
Clint,
in the sense that we would like to be blessed.
‘Cause I don’t think anybody says,
I want Issachar’s blessing.
Give me the hard burden and let me put my shoulder,
that’s not probably our gut reaction here.
And so it’s just good to note that this in some ways does, I think,
maybe spread out our understanding
or at least nuance our understanding
of what that blessing was from the beginning.
It’s not that everything goes perfectly
and you’re always happy,
but rather that God will be faithful in the midst of these different
sort of tributaries coming out of the main trunk.
And Issachar settles in a place,
the land is good.
He saw that the land was pleasant.
Again,
that is a blessing for an agricultural people
to work which is difficult,
good land and have it produce.
And that’s a perfectly acceptable path,
I think, and that’s reflected here,
I think, in the wording.
Let’s go on one more.
Dan,
verse 16,
“Dan shall judge his people
“as one of the tribes of Israel.
“Dan shall be a snake by the roadside,
“a viper along the path that bites the horses’ heels
“so that its rider falls backwards.”
So the first line of this can be translated,
“Dan shall fight for his people.”
And the idea here, I think,
is that Dan is predicted to be a protector.
This idea of biting horses’ heels,
Israel was not a calvary kind of people.
So that’s probably the idea,
that sounds like a,
that doesn’t sound like a compliment.
But if you think of an invading army coming in on horses,
the idea that you are one of the snakes biting their heels
and unhorsing the rider,
that’s a good thing.
That is a compliment of sorts.
And so this is probably a reference to the role
that the tribe of Dan and the people of Dan will play
in fighting,
they are a fighting people,
not only among their tribes,
they will go to war
even with some of their fellow Israelites,
but they stand out as ready to protect
and ready to engage in battle against Israel’s enemies.
This is Clint,
maybe the first one,
correct me if I’m wrong here,
this is the first tribe
I can think of
that really Dan didn’t get any play
in the Genesis text either that I can think of,
and he will have some significant,
that tribe will have significant sort of outgrowth
and story to come.
So in some ways,
this is all foreshadowing
because so far Genesis,
I don’t think, has really fleshed out who Dan was.
No, I think it’s interesting that really,
it’s only the case of the first three,
Simeon, Levi, and Ruben,
that we see connection to what they’ve done
in the story as it’s already been told.
The rest of this really does point to the story
that has yet to unfold.
You would need to get into the book of Judges,
the book of Numbers,
Deuteronomy,
you would need to get into some of that,
even Joshua to some extent,
you would need to get into those stories
before some of this really played itself out.
So there is very much a sense
where after those first three sons,
this is almost exclusively pointed toward material
we’ve not covered yet.
Yeah, and I think the only thing I’ll just point out here,
our Clint, is what’s really interesting
after we finish Dan in verse 17,
is just look at how quickly that turns to
almost like the interjection of a psalm,
like you would almost hear this in the words of David,
“I wait for your salvation,
O Lord.” It’s interesting how that’s connected to,
even as you said,
the idea of this tribe
who has some success defensively
and a tribe who’s able to win some of the fights
that they enter into.
If you gotta remember that the Genesis text
is not only telling us history,
but it’s a reflection of the people who live later.
This as a moment in this telling of these brothers
and therefore the tribes that will follow,
it’s very interesting that this is the moment
to call upon the salvation of the Lord,
almost a reflection as the necessity of that salvation,
an awareness that not even Dan is gonna be strong enough
or good enough to repel the kind of invaders
that are gonna come.
So I also find it interesting
that we have this pretty repetitive pattern
of each brother being given a blessing,
and then here in verse 18,
just this short interjection,
“I wait for your salvation, O Lord.”
Yeah,
essentially we’re halfway through,
roughly,
and so maybe that’s part of it,
but it does have a kind of lyrical,
a kind of liturgical quality to it,
and is possibly a break in the lineage
of the brothers as well.
It is an odd thing to kind of add in there.
Well,
I don’t know how much of that, this,
again, this is probably not devotional material,
I think very few people are going to sit down with Genesis 49
and really make it a part of their personal reading,
but it does influence the story,
primarily the story to come,
though not exclusively, so we’ll finish this up tomorrow
as we continue to go through the rest of the brothers.
It won’t surprise you that the largest section
is going to be reserved for Joseph.
Joseph and Judah will talk about why that is,
that those two stand out in this chapter,
but we will do that tomorrow.
Hope you can be with us,
thank you for your time today.
Yeah, friends, it’s good to have you with us.
Only note here at the end,
I do think as we go through this,
it does help us set up a little bit of a sense
for how different families can be,
so that this isn’t devotional,
but I think it is worth noting that the Bible owns
the differences that come out of this family unit,
and yeah, stay tuned.
We’ll be back with Joseph tomorrow.
I think there’ll be some interesting things.
Thanks for being with us.