49: 2 Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; And hearken unto Israel your father.
49: 3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the 469beginning of my strength; The pre-eminence of dignity, and the pre-eminence of power.
469Or, firstfruits of my strength;
49: 4 Boiling over as water, 470thou shalt not have the pre-eminence; Because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.
470Or, have not thou
49: 5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; Weapons of violence are their 471swords.
471Or, compacts.
49: 6 O my soul, come not thou into their 472council; Unto their assembly, my glory, be not thou united; For in their anger they slew 473a man, And in their self-will they hocked 474an ox.
472Or, secret;
473Or, men, Hb. ish (singular, but could be generic)
474Or, oxen. Hb. shor (singular, but could be generic)
49: 7 475Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; And their wrath, for it was cruel: I will 476divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.
475Hb. ררא, arar; to curse, to execrate!
476Simeon received towns scattered in the territory of Judah (hence, no contiguous territory), and Levi forty-eight towns scattered in all Israel. Josh 20-21
49: 8 Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise: Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; Thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.
49: 9 Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up: He stooped down, he couched as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?
49: 10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, Nor 477the ruler’s staff from between his feet, 478Until Shiloh come; And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be.
477Or, a lawgiver
478Or, Till he come to Shiloh, having the obeisance of the peoples. Aramaic reads Till he come whose it is; etc. or, …whose the sceptre is;
49: 11 Binding his foal unto the vine, And his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; He hath washed his garments in wine, And his vesture in the blood of grapes:
49: 12 His eyes shall be red with wine, And his teeth white with milk.
49: 13 Zebulun shall dwell at the 479haven of the seas; And he shall be for a haven of ships; And his border shall be 480unto Sidon.
479Hb. beach (both times)
480Or, by Sidon. Severin, versions read unto Sidon.
49: 14 Issachar is a strong ass, Couching down between 481the two sheepfolds:
481Or, its saddlebags ( per ESV)
49: 15 And he saw 482a resting-place that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And became a servant under task-work.
482Or, rest
49: 16 Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel.
49: 17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way, An 483adder in the path, That biteth the horse’s heels, So that his rider falleth backward.
483Or, horned snake
49: 18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Jehovah.
49: 19 Gad, 484a troop 485shall press upon him; But he shall press upon their heel.
484Hb. gedud, a marauding band
485Hb. gad, to press
49: 20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield royal dainties.
49: 21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: He giveth goodly words.
49: 22 Joseph is 486a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a fountain; His 487branches run over the wall.
486Hb. the son of a fruitful tree,
487Hb. daughters
49: 23 The archers have sorely grieved him, And shot at him, and persecuted him:
49: 24 But his bow abode in strength, And the arms of his hands were made 488strong, By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (489From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel),
488Or, active,
489Or, From thence, from the shepherd, Hbmg reads By the name of the shepherd,
49: 25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, With the blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.
49: 26 The blessings of thy father Have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him 490that was separate from his brethren.
490Or, that is prince among his brethren.
49: 27 Benjamin is a wolf that raveneth: In the morning he shall devour the prey, And towards evening he shall divide the spoil.
49: 28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.
49: 29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
49: 30 in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.
49: 31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I 491buried Leah –
491Perhaps in one of the first two years of the famine, though possibly any time after Joseph came to power. Compare ch. 37:9-10.
49: 32 the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of Heth.
49: 33 And when Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the breath, and was gathered unto his people.
