Genesis 49:2

49:1,2 All Jacob's sons were living. His calling them together was a precept for them to unite in love, not to mingle with the Egyptians; and foretold that they should not be separated, as Abraham's sons and Isaac's were, but should all make one people. We are not to consider this address as the expression of private feelings of affection, resentment, or partiality; but as the language of the Holy Ghost, declaring the purpose of God respecting the character, circumstances, and situation of the tribes which descended from the sons of Jacob, and which may be traced in their histories.

Gather yourselves together,.... This is repeated to hasten them, and to suggest that he had something of importance to make known unto them, which he chose to do, when they were together: and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken to Israel your father: these words are used and doubled to excite their attention to what he was about to say, and which is urged from the near relation there was between them.

Genesis 49:2 . Hearken, unto Israel your father — This chapter calls for our strictest attention, for it contains a number of predictions which were to be fulfilled at distant periods, through a long succession of ages; things depending upon so many various circumstances, upon such remote causes, so hid to all human view, so contrary to all appearances at the time they were spoken of, that it was impossible for any foresight or sagacity of man so much as to conjecture or imagine them. And yet they were all exactly and fully accomplished; many of them in distant ages, long after both the prophet and the recorder of the prophecies were dead. And surely nothing can give us a higher idea of the Scriptures, or more confirm our faith in them, than to observe events foretold in them, and spoken of with the most certain assurance, ages before they happened, and then to see all these things taking place accordingly. But what makes this chapter of still more value to us, and more worthy of our closest attention, is, that we have here a sure word prophecy, marking out the time and some peculiar circumstances of the coming of the Messiah so particularly as will furnish us with an invincible argument, that not only the Messiah is come, but also that Jesus, in whom we believe, is that Messiah: so that, being fully convinced in our hearts, as Peter was, ( John 6:68-69 ,) we may say with him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?

2 . Assemble yourselves ] This verse forms a kind of introduction to the main subject of the song. and hear ] The occurrence of the same Hebrew word for “hear” in the first clause, and for “hearken” in the second, is metrically a violation of the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. In English it is not apparent, as our rendering “hearken” avoids the repetition. Either “and hear” is a gloss, or another Hebrew word stood for “hearken.” Cf. Deuteronomy 32:1 ; Isaiah 1:10 . Jacob … Israel ] The use of these proper names concurrently is frequent in Israelite poetry. Here it is evidence of the somewhat formal poetical prelude to the main song. Cf. Psalm 105:23 . The names emphasize the national character of the oracle, which is put into the mouth of the patriarch, and has reference to the fortunes of the twelve tribes.

CHAPTER 49 Ge 49:1-33. Patriarchal Blessing. 1. Jacob called unto his sons—It is not to the sayings of the dying saint, so much as of the inspired prophet, that attention is called in this chapter. Under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit he pronounced his prophetic benediction and described the condition of their respective descendants in the last days, or future times.

Verse 2. - Gather yourselves together , - the repetition indicates at once the elevation of the speaker's soul, and the importance, in his mind, of the impending revelation - and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. The two clauses form a synthetic or synonymous parallel, numerous illustrations of which are to be found in the succeeding verses. Genesis 49:2

And Jacob called his sons - This is done by messengers going to their various dwellings and pasture-grounds, and summoning them to his presence. And he said. These words introduce his dying address. "Gather yourselves together." Though there is to be a special address to each, yet it is to be in the audience of all the rest, for the instruction of the whole family. "That which shall befall you in the after days." The after days are the times intervening between the speaker and the end of the human race. The beginning of man was at the sixth day of the last creation. The end of his race will be at the dissolution of the heavens and the earth then called into being, and the new creation which we are taught will be consequent thereupon. To this interval prophecy has reference in general, though it occasionally penetrates beyond the veil that separates the present from the future creation. The prophet has his mind filled with the objects and events of the present and the past, and from these he must draw his images for the future, and express them in the current language of his day. To interpret his words, therefore, we must ascend to his day, examine his usage of speech, distinguish the transient forms in which truth may appear, and hold fast by the constant essence which belongs to all ages. "Hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken to Israel your father." This is a specimen of the synthetic or synonymous parallel.

It affords a good example of the equivalence, and at the same time the distinction, of Jacob and Israel. They both apply to the same person, and to the race of which he is the head. The one refers to the natural, the other to the spiritual. The distinction is similar to that between Elohim and Yahweh: the former of which designates the eternal God, antecedent to all creation, and therefore, equally related to the whole universe; the latter, the self-existent God, subsequent to the creation of intelligent beings, and especially related to them, as the moral Governor, the Keeper of covenant, and the Performer of promise.

The Blessing. - Genesis 49:1 , Genesis 49:2 . When Jacob had adopted and blessed the two sons of Joseph, he called his twelve sons, to make known to them his spiritual bequest. In an elevated and solemn tone he said, "Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you (יקרא for יקרה, as in Genesis 42:4 , Genesis 42:38 ) at the end of the days! Gather yourselves together and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father!" The last address of Jacob-Israel to his twelve sons, which these words introduce, is designated by the historian ( Genesis 49:28 ) "the blessing," with which "their father blessed them, every one according to his blessing." This blessing is at the same time a prophecy. "Every superior and significant life becomes prophetic at its close" (Ziegler). But this was especially the case with the lives of the patriarchs, which were filled and sustained by the promises and revelations of God. As Isaac in his blessing ( Genesis 27 ) pointed out prophetically to his two sons, by virtue of divine illumination, the future history of their families; "so Jacob, while blessing the twelve, pictured in grand outlines the lineamenta of the future history of the future nation" (Ziegler).