Charles Ellicott Commentary Genesis 49:15

"And he saw a 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 taskwork." — Genesis 49:15 (ASV)

A servant to tribute. —Hebrew, task-work. It means service paid in actual labour, such as was exacted by Solomon of the descendants of the Canaanites (1 Kings 9:21, where the phrase used here is translated “a tribute of bondservice; ” and 2 Chronicles 8:8). In the Middle Ages, this forced labour—called service without wages in Jeremiah 22:13—was one of the wrongs most deeply felt by the peasantry, as they had to neglect their own plots of ground to labour for their seigneurs. The picture, then, is that of a race settled in a rich agricultural country, and content to endure a great deal of injustice because their condition as a whole was prosperous.