49 Jacob Blesses His Sons

49:1 Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come. ²“Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob, listen to Israel your father.

³“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power. ⁴Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it—he went up to my couch!

⁵“Simeon and Levi are brothers; weapons of violence are their swords. ⁶Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be not joined to their company. For in their anger they killed men, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen. ⁷Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

⁸“Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. ⁹Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? ¹⁰The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him;^[1]and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. ¹¹Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. ¹²His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.

¹³“Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon.

¹⁴“Issachar is a strong donkey, crouching between the sheepfolds.^[2]¹⁵He saw that a resting place was good, and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant at forced labor.

¹⁶“Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁷Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward. ¹⁸I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹“Raiders shall raid Gad,^[3]but he shall raid at their heels.

²⁰“Asher’s food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies.

²¹“Naphtali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns.^[4]

²²“Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall.^[5]²³The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely, ²⁴yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms[6] were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob (from there is the Shepherd,[7] the Stone of Israel), ²⁵by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty[8] who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. ²⁶The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.^[9]May they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

²⁷“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.”

Jacob’s Death and Burial

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. ²⁹Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰in the cave that is in the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. ³¹There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah—³²the field and the cave that is in it were bought from the Hittites.” ³³When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.

[1] By a slight revocalization; a slight emendation yields (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Targum) until he comes to whom it belongs; Hebrew until Shiloh comes, or until he comes to Shiloh [2] Or between its saddlebags [3]Gad sounds like the Hebrew for raiders and raid [4] Or he gives beautiful words, or that bears fawns of the fold [5] Or Joseph is a wild donkey, a wild donkey beside a spring, his wild colts beside the wall [6] Hebrew the arms of his hands [7] Or by the name of the Shepherd [8] Hebrew Shaddai [9] A slight emendation yields (compare Septuagint) the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills

50 50:1 Then Joseph fell on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. ²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. ³Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

⁴And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ⁵My father made me swear, saying, ‘I am about to die: in my tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.’ Now therefore, let me please go up and bury my father. Then I will return.” ⁶And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.” ⁷So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. ⁹And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company. ¹⁰When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they lamented there with a very great and grievous lamentation, and he made a mourning for his father seven days. ¹¹When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians.” Therefore the place was named Abel-mizraim;[10] it is beyond the Jordan. ¹²Thus his sons did for him as he had commanded them, ¹³for his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, to the east of Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite to possess as a burying place. ¹⁴After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.

God’s Good Purposes

¹⁵When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” ¹⁶So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died, ¹⁷‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” ¹⁹But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? ²⁰As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people[11] should be kept alive, as they are today. ²¹So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

The Death of Joseph

²²So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. ²³And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own.[12] ²⁴And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” ²⁵Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” ²⁶So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

[10]Abel-mizraim means mourning (or meadow) of Egypt [11] Or a numerous people [12] Hebrew were born on Joseph’s knees