Genesis 49–50

Chapter 49

¹And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days. ²Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob, And listen to Israel your father. ³Reuben, thou art my firstborn, My might, and the firstfruits of my vigour: Excellency of dignity, and excellency of strength. ⁴Impetuous as the waters, thou shalt have no pre-eminence; Because thou wentest up to thy father’s couch: Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my bed.

⁵Simeon and Levi are brethren: Instruments of violence their swords. ⁶My soul, come not into their council; Mine honour, be not united with their assembly; For in their anger they slew men, And in their wantonness houghed oxen. ⁷Cursed be their anger, for it was violent; And their rage, for it was cruel! I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.

⁸Judah—as to thee, thy brethren will praise thee; Thy hand will be upon the neck of thine enemies; Thy father’s children will bow down to thee. ⁹Judah is a young lion; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up. He stoopeth, he layeth himself down as a lion, And as a lioness: who will rouse him up? ¹⁰The sceptre will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come, And to him will be the obedience of peoples. ¹¹He bindeth his foal to the vine, And his ass’s colt to the choice vine; He washeth his dress in wine, And his garment in the blood of grapes. ¹²The eyes are red with wine, And the teeth are white with milk.

¹³Zebulun will dwell at the shore of the seas; Yea, he will be at the shore of the ships, And his side toucheth upon Sidon. ¹⁴Issachar is a bony ass, Crouching down between two hurdles. ¹⁵And he saw the rest that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And was a tributary servant. ¹⁶Dan will judge his people, As another of the tribes of Israel. ¹⁷Dan will be a serpent on the way, A horned snake on the path, Which biteth the horse’s heels, So that the rider falleth backwards. ¹⁸I wait for thy salvation, O Jehovah. ¹⁹Gad—troops will rush upon him; But he will rush upon the heel. ²⁰Out of Asher, his bread shall be fat, And he will give royal dainties. ²¹Naphtali is a hind let loose; He giveth goodly words.

²²Joseph is a fruitful bough; A fruitful bough by a well; His branches shoot over the wall. ²³The archers have provoked him, And shot at, and hated him; ²⁴But his bow abideth firm, And the arms of his hands are supple By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob. From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel: ²⁵From the •God of thy father, and he will help thee; And from the Almighty, and he will bless thee—With blessings of heaven from above, With blessings of the deep that lieth under, With blessings of the breast and of the womb. ²⁶The blessings of thy father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, Unto the bounds of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him that was separated from his brethren. ²⁷Benjamin—as a wolf will he tear to pieces; In the morning he will devour the prey, And in the evening he will divide the booty.

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them; and he blessed them: every one according to his blessing he blessed them. ²⁹And he charged them, and said to them, I am gathered to my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is opposite to Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite along with the field for a possession of a sepulchre. ³¹There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebecca his wife; and there I buried Leah. ³²The purchase of the field, and of the cave that is in it, was from the children of Heth. ³³And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered his feet into the bed, and expired, and was gathered to his peoples.

Chapter 50

¹And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. ²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. And the physicians embalmed Israel. ³And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days. ⁴And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favour in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, ⁵My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die; in my grave which I have dug myself in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. And now, let me go up, I pray thee, that I may bury my father; and I will come again. ⁶And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

⁷And Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the bondmen of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house; only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. ⁹And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and the camp was very great. ¹⁰And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan; and there they lamented with a great and very grievous lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father of seven days. ¹¹And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning of the Egyptians. Therefore the name of it was called Abel-Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan. ¹²And his sons did to him according as he had commanded them; ¹³and his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah which Abraham had bought along with the field, for a possession of a sepulchre, of Ephron the Hittite, opposite to Mamre. ¹⁴And, after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that had gone up with him to bury his father.

¹⁵And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, If now Joseph should be hostile to us, and should indeed requite us all the evil that we did to him! ¹⁶And they sent a messenger to Joseph, saying, Thy father commanded before he died, saying, ¹⁷Thus shall ye speak to Joseph: Oh forgive, I pray thee, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin! for they did evil to thee. And now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and said, Behold, we are thy bondmen. ¹⁹And Joseph said to them, Fear not: am I then in the place of God? ²⁰Ye indeed meant evil against me: God meant it for good, in order that he might do as it is this day, to save a great people alive. ²¹And now, fear not: I will maintain you and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spoke consolingly to them.

²²And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s house; and Joseph lived a hundred and ten years. ²³And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation; the sons also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born on Joseph’s knees. ²⁴And Joseph said to his brethren, I die; and God will certainly visit you, and bring you up out of this land, into the land that he swore unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ²⁵And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will certainly visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones hence. ²⁶And Joseph died, a hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him; and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.