Genesis Chapter 49

¹ And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

Jacob seemed to know his time had come to die. He called his sons together to speak with them and bless them. Jacob knew who his sons were through the Lord…meaning he knew their spirits and hearts, and he blessed them according to their position with God more than their birth order. He shared God’s vision for his sons with them and shared the vision of their futures and that of their offspring.

² Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

³ Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:

Reuben was Jacob’s firstborn son, he would have been the most honored of his children and viewed as a sign of the strength and vitality of his father. He would have taken the position as a sort of prince in the family and everyone would have been aware that this sibling had power in the absence of the father, for example if he were to die. The firstborn is given a double portion of the inheritance. Jacob reminds his son Reuben that this would have been his had it not been for his actions.

⁴ Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

This is not simply about Reuben personally, it’s his entire bloodline from which no prophets, kings or judges would come. Reuben was excluded because of his sin of having sex with his fathers’ wife Bilhah, who was his step-mother.

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

These two are both the sons of Leah and Jacob, they are mentioned together because they were close to one another and acted in consort to slaughter all the men in the city of Shechem, then spoil their city because the son of the ruler, also called Shechem, had taken their sister Dinah sexually. They acted without their fathers’ permission and with absolute cruelty. Their father was very upset upon hearing what they did and was concerned for the well-being of the entire family if any of the surrounding cities decided to challenge Jacob’s family because of what was done. God prevented that from happening, but not because he was in agreement with the two sons, but for Jacob and his family’s sake.

⁶ O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.

⁷ Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

These two were particularly cruel and given over to wrath. As a result, they are to be divided and scattered in Israel. The tribe of Levi would become the priesthood and as such would never be given their own land. Simeon was given a smaller bit of land within Judah’s land until they dispersed into the rest of the tribes.

⁸ Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.

Jesus comes from Judah and is called The Lion of the Tribe of Judah. This prophecy speaks of the coming Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus.

• Isaiah 45:22-23 ²² Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.²³ I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
• Phililippians 2:9-11 ⁹ Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:¹⁰ That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;¹¹ And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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 an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

¹⁰ The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Jacob saw all of this in his son Judah through the vision that God had given him. How glorious that had to have been for Jacob to see how God was going to work through his son’s bloodline to bring forth the Messiah that would save the world from their sins.

¹¹ Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:

¹² His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

This is about the prosperity of Judah.

¹³ Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:

¹⁵ And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.

¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

¹⁸ I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹ Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.

²⁰ Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.

²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:

²³ The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:

²⁴ But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)

²⁵ Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

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 that was separate from his brethren.

Clearly, Jacob knows what the brother’s did to his son Joseph now. Joseph was sold into slavery and God made him strong because this was for God’s purposes to save his entire family and all of their bloodlines…which includes our Savior Jesus, who descended from Judah.

²⁷ Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.

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.

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,

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 of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying place.

³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.

³² The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.

³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.