Genesis 49

Now on his deathbed, Jacob takes the time to bless each of his sons in turn. He may be old, but he's still lucid enough to recite his blessings in the form of meticulously structured poetry. Or maybe he wrote all the blessings down beforehand and memorized them.

It's no surprise that Jacob spends little time on the sons that we've barely read about. Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, and Benjamin are all given relatively short shrift, though most of them get either fairly positive or ambiguous blessings. Issachar and Dan's blessings, with their slightly longer length (two verses each) provide some intrigue. Jacob compares Issachar with a donkey, which probably didn't have the pejorative connotation it has today, or even in Shakespeare's time. (See A Midsummer Night's Dream.) He and his descendants will be given a nice little domicile, which will apparently spur them to "submit to forced labor" (verse 15). I would've thought that living in a swell place would tend to make you either lazy or ambitious. Dan will serve as an arbiter of sorts, compared to a snake biting a "horse's heels so that its rider stumbles backward" (verse 17). Such action would surely cause discomfort to said rider, but because I'm immature, I still find mild humor in the image of someone slipping as if they'd tripped on a banana peel, subsequently falling on their rump.

Because Reuben made an oops in chapter 35 (fooling around with one of Jacob's concubines), he earns more of a curse than a blessing. Here again, we get the cliche of the firstborn being robust and commanding, but Jacob reduces his fortunes to a state of turmoil and uncertainty. If nothing else, we now know that Jacob did his rumpy pumpy on the couch. Simeon and Levi receive a conflated curse because of what they did in chapter 34, killing a whole city of men who had just suffered the unkindest cut. Jacob says their descendants will be scattered, though at least Levi's descendants were later granted the task of performing priestly duties.

Judah and Jacob merit the lengthiest, richest blessings. Judah's tribe becomes foremost among the southern kingdom of Israel after the kingdom splits following Solomon's reign. Well, I should actually use the preposition "between," because only the tribe of Benjamin joins Judah in the southern kingdom.  The combined tribes of Judah and Benjamin will enjoy some terrific kings, while all the kings of the northern kingdom will basically suck. What's more, no less a personage that Jesus will come from Judah's line--perhaps referred to via the lion imagery in verse 9, as one of Jesus' multitudinous monikers is Lion of the Tribe of Judah. I don't what's going on with the eyes "darker than wine" and "teeth whiter than milk" in verse 12, though.

Finally, Jacob endows Joseph with an encomium rife with profuse blessings. Through all the grandiloquent language, Jacob reminds his favorite son that all that he has comes from God. I would do well to remember this as well. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I must remember to thank God for his providence, all the blessings he has given me, and the unfathomably priceless opportunity to enjoy a personal relationship with Him--an opportunity available to all.