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CHAPTER 23: The Last Blessing of Jacob - Death of Jacob - Death of
Joseph (GENESIS 49:1)
THE last scene had now come, and Jacob gathered around his dying couch his twelve
sons. The words which he spake to them were of mingled blessing and prediction.
Before him, in prophetic vision, unrolled, as it were, pictures of the tribes of which
his sons were to be the ancestors; and what he saw he sketched in grand outlines. It is
utterly impossible to regard these prophetic pictures as exact representations of any
one definite period or even event in the history of Israel. They are sketches of the
tribes in their grand characteristics, rather than predictions, either of special events, or
of the history of Israel as a whole. And to them applies especially the description
which one has given of prophetic visions generally, that "they are pictures drawn
without perspective," - that is, such that you cannot discern the distance from you of
the various objects. Two other general remarks may be helpful to the reader. It will be
observed that, generally, in the "blessing" spoken, the name of the ancestor seems to
unfold the future character and history of the tribe. Secondly, as against all cavilers, it
may be said deliberately, that these words of blessing must have been spoken by
Jacob himself. When we attempt to imagine them as spoken at any other period in the
history of Israel, we find ourselves surrounded by insuperable difficulties. For these
words can only apply to the tribes as Jacob viewed them. They could not have been
written at any other period, since in that case every later writer would have said
something quite inapplicable to one or other of the tribes, so that he could not have
used this precise language concerning them all. With these brief prefatory remarks we
address ourselves to the words of "blessing:"^84
Reuben, my firstborn thou,
My might and the firstling of my strength,
Pre-eminence of dignity and pre-eminence of power -
Such should have been the position of Reuben, as the firstborn, had it not been for the
"upboiling" of his passions and his consequent sin. Hence Jacob continues:
Upboiling like water,
Thou shalt not have the pre-eminence,
Because thou wentest up thy father's bed,
Then defiledst thou it -
He went up my couch!
The sons next in age to Reuben were Simeon and Levi. Their wanton cruelty at
Shechem, from which Jacob recoiled with horror even on his death-bed, had made
them "brethren," or companions in evil. As they had united for evil, so God would
(^)