Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 49

That which shall befall you. — This dying song of Jacob has been regarded alike by Jews and Christians as a prophetic hymn spoken by the patriarch under the influence of the Holy Spirit. By many modern commentators, however, it has been placed in David’s time, and even ascribed to Nathan, partly on the ground that it is too spirited to have been the composition of one lying in the last decrepitude of old age, but chiefly because, in the description given of Judah, it is supposed to refer to the elevation of David to the royal dignity.

But if it was thus written by a member of David’s court, we should reasonably expect an exact knowledge of the state of things in David’s time. For this, in fact, is the argument on which these critics depend: that the internal evidence shows that it belongs to David’s reign.

Now, so far is this from being true, that not only is the whole exceedingly general, containing scarcely more than faint and dim hopes and anticipations, but, except in the matter of Judah’s pre-eminence, there is no knowledge whatsoever of the arrangements of David’s time. Thus, for instance, there is no word about Levi’s priestly functions, and his dispersion in Israel is described as a punishment and put on exactly the same level as that of Simeon. It is said in answer that it was David who established the priesthood and set the Levites apart for their duties.

If so, this was the very reason why Nathan, a seer of his court, should have put into Jacob’s mouth some allusion to so important an event, in order to justify so strong a proceeding as depriving a tribe of its lands and political importance, seizing towns in every other tribe for the abode of its members, and bestowing priestly functions on them.

If, however, David, by an act of despotic power, was able to effect so violent a subversion of all tribal rights, it is strange that no reference is ever made to it.

Moreover, this would imply that the Pentateuch, the Books of Joshua (Joshua 3:3; Joshua 8:33, etc.), Judges (Judges 17:9–13), and Samuel (1 Samuel 2:13; 1 Samuel 2:27–28; 1 Samuel 6:15, etc.) must all be of a date so modern that all remembrance of David’s act has passed away. It would also mean that national traditions created for themselves a setting modelled on a state of things that never existed and which contradicted the most glorious age of the nation’s history.

But national traditions precede the historical period of a people’s annals. From the time of David, careful records of all events in Judah and Israel were kept, and the history of Judah and Israel was one of the chief subjects of instruction given to the youth of the nation in the prophetic schools.

But let us take another instance. At the settlement of the tribes in Canaan, it was Asher and not Zebulun to which the sea-coast on the north fell by lot; south of Asher was the half-tribe of Manasseh, and south of this was Dan. (Compare to Judges 5:17.) Zebulun was an inland tribe and did not dwell at the haven of the sea.

It is unnecessary to continue this examination. Generally, we may affirm that the sole argument for Jacob’s blessing having been written in historic times is the position given to Judah. Everything else contradicts this view, and we may reasonably ascribe the high rank of Judah to the fact that after Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were set aside, he became the firstborn.

In the last days. — Heb., in the after part of days. The phrase is often opposed to “the beginning of days,” and is constantly used of the times of the Messiah. Here these “after days” apparently commence with the conquest of Canaan but look onward to the advent of Christ.

The beginning of my strength. —In Genesis 35:18, the word oni means “my sorrow,” and it is so translated here by the Vulgate, Aquila, and Symmachus. But in this verse Jacob magnifies the prerogatives of the firstborn, and our version is undoubtedly right in deriving oni from a different and not uncommon word signifying strength. It occurs in Deuteronomy 21:17; Job 40:16; Psalms 78:51; Psalms 105:36, etc.

The excellency ... — We must here supply, “And therefore to you as the firstborn belonged,” first, the excellency of dignity, that is, the priesthood; and secondly, the excellency of power, that is, the kingly office. As a matter of history, no king, judge, or prophet is recorded as having sprung from the tribe of Reuben.

Unstable. —This translation is shown to be correct by the use of the word in Judges 9:4; Zephaniah 3:4, in both of which places it is translated light. From this sense of lightness and frivolity, the meaning of wantonness, which the word has in Syriac, naturally arose. In Arabic, it means boastful, another aspect of feebleness.

This sense agrees well with the comparison to water, for it is water's nature to seek its own level; while yielding to every impression, it retains none. The other meaning attributed to it by many able critics is “boiling over like water,” a description of the unrestrained violence of Reuben’s passions.

Thou shalt not excel. —That is, you shall not have that excellence which was yours by right of birth.

Simeon and Levi are brethren. —That is, they are alike in character and disposition. Despising the feeble Reuben, they seem to have been close friends and allies, and probably tried to exercise a tyrannical authority over their younger brothers, Judah being the only one near them in age.

Their habitations. —This translation is universally abandoned, but there is much difference of opinion as to the real meaning of the word. The most probable explanation is that given by Jerome and Rashi, who render it swords.

Apparently, it is the Greek word machaera, a knife; and as neither the Hebrews nor the Canaanites were metallurgists, such articles were imported by merchants from Ionia. Long before the days of Jacob, caravans of traders traversed the whole country, and the goods they brought would carry with them their own foreign names.

The sentence, therefore, should be translated, weapons of violence are their knives. The other meaning given by some competent critics, namely, compacts, if the word could be formed at all from the supposed root, would mean marriage contracts, and this gives no intelligible sense.

Their secret. —The word sôd used here literally means the small carpet or cushion upon which a person in Eastern cultures sits. Consequently, for two people to sit upon the same carpet signifies a high degree of friendship and familiarity. It would therefore be more accurately translated as alliance or intimacy.

To their assembly, my honor, do not be united. —For assembly (Hebrew congregation), see Genesis 28:3 and Genesis 35:11. It means here their union or confederacy. In the first clause, Jacob bids his soul—his true self—not to enter their alliance; here, in the style of Hebrew poetic parallelism, he intensifies the meaning. For by my honor, he signifies all that gave him dignity and worth in the sight of God and man. And this nobleness would be degraded and lost by union with men banded together for evil.

In their self-will they dug down a wall—Self-will is worse than anger and signifies that arrogant temper which leads to wanton cruelty. The latter words mean, they houghed an ox. The Vulgate and Syriac versions took it as our version does, understanding it as making a breach in the walls of Shechem. However, they had a different reading, shur, whereas the word in Hebrew is shor, an ox, and it is rendered this way by the Septuagint. The ox was in ancient times the symbol of majesty, and thus bulls are used for princes in Psalm 22:12 and Psalm 68:30.

Thus, then, the meaning is: “In their anger at the wrong done to their sister, they killed Hamor, prince of Shechem, with his people; and from wanton cruelty, without any just cause for indignation, they hamstrung the noblest of their brothers—not killing Joseph outright, but disabling him by selling him into slavery, so that he might perish there.”