Deuteronomy 33

As an English major, I've written my fair share of analytical essays. (Just how analytical they were is up for debate as I wrote most of them at the last minute, but I somehow still managed to do well on most of them. But it was not a good working habit--that I confess freely.) So if I wanted to be analytical, I could write an essay explicating the similarities and differences between Moses's blessing to the twelve tribes of Israel and Jacob's blessings to his sons. But I don't feel like writing a didactic disquisition, and you probably don't want to read one either. Instead, I will, as is my wont, make facile comments on passages that happen to stick out to me.

Moses opens up his blessing by portraying God as a being that shines forth like the dawn, accompanied by "myriads of holy ones" (verse 2). Indeed, God has been leading the Israelites this whole time as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night; light seems to be part of His essence. How many psalms, poems, and praise songs speak about God's light? "This Little Light of Mine," "Shine, Jesus, Shine," "Pushing Back the Dark"…. The list goes on and on. God's light reveals, provides comfort, and sends the cockroaches of malice scurrying away.

Moses does have good blessings to give each and every one of the tribes. I'd imagine that some of Jacob's sons were more well behaved than others, so it makes sense that he would give his sons a wide range of blessings and, well, non-blessings. But each tribe now has thousands of individual people, each of whom are responsible for their own actions. Some of the blessings make sense--the tribe of Levi has the priestly duties of protecting God's covenant, teaching the law, and preparing the "whole burnt offerings" (verse 10). The tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, from Joseph's line, receive the "choicest gifts" (verse 15). (Joseph's blessing once again compares God's provision to precipitation in verse 13 as "the precious dew from heaven above.") Because I'm an English major, I could also contrive an explanation (which is a fancy euphemism for "B.S.") for Judah's blessing, from whose line Jesus will spring--but I'm sure such a supposition would be spurious.

The blessing that puzzles me the most, though, is Dan's. The entirety of his blessing is, "Dan is a lion's cub / springing out of Bashan" (verse 22). That's it. No explanation of what the lion cub represents, or why the cub is leaping out of Bashan. Is there a fire in Bashan, causing the lion to flee? Is Bashan one giant trampoline or filled with pogo sticks? Is the lion cub like Simba, fleeing from his Uncle Scar? I'm sure most of the tribes of Israel walked away satisfied after hearing their blessings, but Dan's blessing must have been making some cultural reference that I don't understand. Maybe Dan's blessing is the equivalent of saying, "Dan is like a Rebel X-Wing pilot / blowing up the Death Star."