Jacob's Final Blessings

Jacob is ill. Joseph brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Jacob gathers his strength and sits up. "Thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt… are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine." Joseph's sons will stand as tribes in Israel.

Joseph places Manasseh, the elder, at Jacob's right hand and Ephraim at his left. But Jacob, nearly blind, crosses his arms and puts his right hand on Ephraim. Joseph tries to move it. "I know it, my son, I know it… his younger brother shall be greater than he." Once more, the younger first. Jacob blesses them: "The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."

Then he calls all his sons: "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days." What follows is poetry, among the oldest in the Bible.

• Reuben: "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel," because of Bilhah.
• Simeon and Levi: "Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations… I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel," because of Shechem.
• Judah: "thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise… Judah is a lion's whelp… The sceptre shall not depart from Judah… until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."
• Zebulun by the sea; Issachar the strong donkey; Dan a judge and a serpent by the way. Then a sudden prayer: "I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD."
• Gad, Asher, Naphtali; Joseph "a fruitful bough by a well," blessed by "the mighty God of Jacob… the shepherd, the stone of Israel."
• Benjamin: "shall ravin as a wolf."

Jacob gives one last charge: bury me with my fathers in the cave of Machpelah, "there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah." Then he "gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."

Ancient poetry

Genesis 49 is written in compressed, archaic Hebrew poetry, full of wordplay on each son's name (Judah and "praise," Dan and "judge," Gad and "raiders"). Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman counted it among Israel's oldest poems, alongside the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Other scholars date its present form to the time of the monarchy, when Judah's royal role was clear.

Adopting grandsons

Jacob's adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, with the boys placed on his knees (48:12), reflects real adoption customs in which a child placed on the knees was received as one's own. It explains why later Israel has a tribe of Ephraim and a tribe of Manasseh but no tribe of Joseph.

The lion of Judah

The blessing of Judah shaped Israel's hope for a king from Judah, fulfilled in David's dynasty. Later Jewish interpreters read "until Shiloh come" as a promise of the Messiah, and the New Testament calls Jesus "the Lion of the tribe of Juda" (Revelation 5:5). The Hebrew of 49:10 is notoriously difficult; see the Journey of a Passage.