20240421 Genesis 49: The Prophecies of Jacob, part 2
Genesis: Looking Back in Order to Move Ahead Spiritually • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Call to Worship - Psalm 146
1 Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh, O my soul! 2 I will praise Yahweh throughout my life; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. 3 Do not trust in nobles, In merely a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. 4 His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; In that very day his plans perish.
5 How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in Yahweh his God, 6 Who made heaven and earth, The sea and all that is in them; Who keeps truth forever; 7 Who does justice for the oppressed; Who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh sets the prisoners free. 8 Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind; Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down; Yahweh loves the righteous;
9 Yahweh keeps the sojourners; He helps up the orphan and the widow, But He bends the way of the wicked. 10 Yahweh will reign forever, Your God, O Zion, from generation to generation. Praise Yah!
Scripture Reading - Genesis 49
1 Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Gather together that I may tell you what will befall you in the last days. 2 “Assemble together and hear, O sons of Jacob; And listen to Israel your father.
3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn; My might and the beginning of my vigor, Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in strength. 4 “Uncontrolled 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; Their swords are implements of violence. 6 “Let my soul not enter into their council; Let not my glory be united with their assembly; Because in their anger they killed men, And in their self-will they hamstrung oxen. 7 “Cursed be their anger, for it is strong; And their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them amongst Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.
8 “Judah, as for you, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. 9 “Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lioness, who dares rouse him up? 10 “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 11 “He ties his foal to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine; He washes his garments in wine, And his robes in the blood of grapes. 12 “His eyes are dark from wine, And his teeth white from milk.
13 “Zebulun will dwell at the seashore; And he shall be a shore for ships, And his flank shall be toward Sidon.
14 “Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between the sheepfolds. 15 “And he saw that a resting place was good And that the land was pleasant, So he bowed his shoulder to bear burdens, And became a slave at forced labor.
16 “Dan shall render justice to his people, As one of the tribes of Israel. 17 “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, A horned snake in the path, That bites the horse’s heels, So that his rider falls backward. 18 “For Your salvation I hope, O Yahweh.
19 “As for Gad, raiders shall raid him, But he will raid at their heels.
20 “As for Asher, his food shall be rich, And he will yield royal dainties.
21 “Naphtali is a doe let loose, He gives beautiful words.
22 “Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a spring; Its branches run over a wall. 23 “And the archers bitterly attacked him and shot at him, And they bore a grudge against him; 24 But his bow remained firm, And his arms were agile, From the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel, 25 From the God of your father who helps you, And by the Almighty who blesses you With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb. 26 “The blessings of your father Have surpassed the blessings of my ancestors Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills; May they be on the head of Joseph, And on the top of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.
27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he devours the prey, And in the evening he divides the spoil.”
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them. So he blessed them. He blessed them, every one with the blessing appropriate to him.
29 Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to 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 along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial site. 31 “There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah— 32 the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.” 33 So Jacob finished commanding his sons. And he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
Genesis 49: The Prophecies of Jacob, part 2
Introduction:
The word death appears 25 times in the first 8 chapters of Romans, the word died appears 13 times, with most of the verses referring to Jesus who died to accomplish eternal life for those who are in Christ , and the word die zero times .
In comparison, in the book of Genesis the word death occurs 31 times, the word died 31 times, and the word die 26 times.
Why compare these words? Why compare Genesis and Romans?
Both Genesis and Romans make the offer of eternal life through total. But both Genesis and Romans state that the world chose to believe a lie and have rejected the truth of God. Both Genesis and Romans state there is enmity and broken fellowship between the creator and the created.
The creation and the fall, that is consequences of sin after Adam’s rebellion and Genesis chapters 1-3 saturate the pages of the Book of Romans.
It is in Romans that Abraham’s life in Genesis is portrayed as a life of faith, and the Abrahamic covenant is presented as the covenant for the nation of Israel and for the world.
Perhaps most important may be that Genesis and Romans both present the first man Adam, and that through him death entered the world.
But while Genesis hints at the promise of another Adam, the one who would destroy sin and death, Romans presents the last Adam, Jesus, who through his perfect obedience and his substitutionary death accomplishes eternal life for those who are born from above by the Holy Spirit.
And this relationship between Genesis and Romans, death and eternal life is perhaps best summarized by one verse
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(1) The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ
The entire book of Genesis demonstrates this.
It was in Genesis 25 that Rebekah is told that she will have twins and that Esau the older will serve Jacob the younger. Even with this prediction, we see sinfulness and lack of faith of Jacob. But in Genesis 28 we see the salvation of Jacob and we see the transformation and ups and downs of Jacob in chapters 29-48. In Genesis 32 he was named Israel. And now in Genesis 49 we are about to see the death of Jacob.
Abraham, Isaac and now Jacob show us that despite our sinfulness, the gift of eternal life is sovereignly given not to those who appear to deserve it or to those who have somehow earned it but to those who through faith repent and to turn to Him for salvation.
(2) Jacob’s prophecy affirms God’s justice, God’s grace, and God’s sovereignty
Andrew Steinmann - Genesis
Genesis 49:1–28 (TOTC Ge (Steinmann)): The last words of Jacob, sometimes called the Testament of Jacob, form the first long poem in the Bible. It contains the final blessing pronounced by Jacob, who had blessed Pharaoh (47:7, 10) and Joseph and his sons (48:9, 15, 20). Now he would bless his twelve sons (v. 28). Not only does this poem prophesy about the future of the tribes produced by each of Jacob’s sons, but it also recalls in poetic form the acts of four of them: Reuben’s adultery (v. 4; 35:22), Simeon and Levi’s murder of the Shechemites (vv. 5–6; 34:1–31), and Joseph’s being sold into Egypt and his ascent to power there (vv. 23–24).
Two sons of Jacob are prominent in the last major section of Genesis, the account of Jacob’s family (37:2–50:26): Joseph and Judah. These two sons receive the longest blessings among the twelve. Judah’s blessing contains fifty-five words, while Joseph’s blessing contains sixty-one words. Between the two of them, their blessings occupy almost half of the 253 words in this poem.
The order of the sons in the poem is unique. Leah’s six sons occupy the first half of the poem. They are mainly presented in birth order except that Zebulun (Leah’s sixth son) is blessed before Issachar (Leah’s fifth son). Rachel’s sons, Joseph and Benjamin, are last. Between the sons of Leah and Rachel are the sons of the concubines, but in a peculiar order: Bilhah’s older son Dan is placed before the two sons of Zilpah (Gad and Asher), but Bilhah’s younger son Naphtali is blessed after Zilpah’s sons.
One striking feature of Jacob’s prophecy is its use of animal imagery. At least twelve Hebrew words denoting animals are used a total of thirteen times in this poem. In addition, three more words denoting animals may occur: one in Naphtali’s blessing (v. 21, see comment below) and two in Joseph’s blessing (v. 22, see comment below). There is also occasional agricultural imagery that occurs only in the blessings for the two principal sons, Judah and Joseph: wine and grapes (v. 11), wine and milk (v. 12) and perhaps vine and branches (v. 22)
Finally, it ought to be noted that this first long poem in the Pentateuch is most similar in form to the last long poem in the Pentateuch: Moses’ Blessing (Deut. 33:2–29). That poem pronounces blessing on the twelve tribes of Israel immediately before Moses’ death, just as this poem pronounces blessing on Jacob’s sons immediately before Jacob’s death.
God’s justice on Reuben and Simeon and Levi
God’s grace to Joseph and Judah
God’s sovereignty over creation, over the individual lives of men and women, over the accomplishment of his salvation through His savior
The Messiah will have the title, the lion of Judah.
29 Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to 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 along with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial site. 31 “There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah— 32 the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.” 33 So Jacob finished commanding his sons. And he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
While we spend our days and our lives in Egypt, may we long to return to our true home, the home promised by the Lord for his children
Let’s pray.
May the Lord hide you in His shelter in the day of trouble, conceal you under the cover of His tent, may He set you high upon a rock. Amen.