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.
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:
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.
5.
Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
WAITING FOR GOD’S SALVATION
‘I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.’
Genesis 49:18
These words are a parenthesis in Jacob’s long blessing of his sons. The old man seemed to have been exhausted with the thoughts and visions which passed over his mind in such quick succession. He paused to take a spiritual inspiration: ‘I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.’
I. Such chapters of life, such seasons of suspense, such exercises of the quiet confidences of the soul, are to be found in every Christian’s experience. They may come in different ways to different men, but they are in some form or other a necessity to every man—an essential part of the discipline of the school of salvation.
II. These intervals of waiting must be filled up with four things: prayer, praise, fellowship, and work.
III. It will be a helpful thought to you as you wait, that if you wait, Christ waits. Whatever your longing is that the time be over, His longing is greater. There are many things that you have had that have turned to a curse, which would have been blessings if only there had been more ‘waiting.’
Rev. Jas. Vaughan.
Illustration
(1) ‘Some modern critics have made objections to the genuineness of this “blessing.” Yet when we look into it, it appears to be quite congruous with the alleged occasion on which it was uttered.
Its very vagueness or generality; the indefiniteness both in its descriptions and in its reference to the future; its poetic imagery and absence of detailed predictions are quite consistent with its being what it is recorded as being,—a farewell address by Jacob to his sons, as he lay on his deathbed in Egypt, and looked onward to a return of his posterity into the land which God had promised should be theirs. The peculiar manner in which Jacob distinguished between the destinies of his sons shows that his natural predilections were guided and controlled.
Two features of the address are very observable, viz. Jacob’s anticipations of Israel’s future (the variety of character and destiny in those who should constitute the nation of Israel), and Jacob’s prediction of Israel’s Ruler (the central hope, connected with the “kingly” tribe of Judah).
The aged Patriarch had an ideal before him; not a map of historically defined events, but a kind of vision in which bright lights and dark shadows were intermingled, yet were all pointing onward to a time of triumph, when all peoples should be gathered together in submissive obedience to the Prince of Peace, who should come of Judah’s line.’
(2) ‘Jacob’s blessing fits perfectly the very place in which it appears. It is in harmony with all its surroundings.… There is pictured to us a very aged patriarch surrounded by his sons. He has lived an eventful life. He has had much care and sorrow, though claiming to have seen visions of the Almighty and to have conversed with angels. His sons have given him trouble. Their conduct has led him to study closely their individual characteristics. He lives in an age when great importance is attached to the idea of posterity, and of their fortunes, as the sources of people and races. This is more thought of than their immediate personal destiny.… Along with this were the ideas of covenant and promise,—which, whether real or visionary, were most peculiar to that time, and that particular family … Under these circumstances the aged patriarch at the approaching close of his long pilgrimage, gathers around him his sons, and his sons’ sons, to give them his blessing.’
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.
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 buryingplace.
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.