Genesis 49–50

Chapter 49

Jacob’s Last Words to His Sons

Then Jacob called together all his sons and said, “Gather around me, and I will tell you what will happen to each of you in the days to come.

²“Come and listen, you sons of Jacob;

listen to Israel, your father.

³“Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength,

the child of my vigorous youth.

You are first in rank and first in power.

⁴But you are as unruly as a flood,

and you will be first no longer.

For you went to bed with my wife;

you defiled my marriage couch.

⁵“Simeon and Levi are two of a kind;

their weapons are instruments of violence.

⁶May I never join in their meetings;

may I never be a party to their plans.

For in their anger they murdered men,

and they crippled oxen just for sport.

⁷A curse on their anger, for it is fierce;

a curse on their wrath, for it is cruel.

I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob;

I will disperse them throughout Israel.

⁸“Judah, your brothers will praise you.

You will grasp your enemies by the neck.

All your relatives will bow before you.

⁹Judah, my son, is a young lion

that has finished eating its prey.

Like a lion he crouches and lies down;

like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?

¹⁰The scepter will not depart from Judah,

nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants,

until the coming of the one to whom it belongs,

the one whom all nations will honor.

¹¹He ties his foal to a grapevine,

the colt of his donkey to a choice vine.

He washes his clothes in wine,

his robes in the blood of grapes.

¹²His eyes are darker than wine,

and his teeth are whiter than milk.

¹³“Zebulun will settle by the seashore

and will be a harbor for ships;

his borders will extend to Sidon.

¹⁴“Issachar is a sturdy donkey,

resting between two saddlepacks.

¹⁵When he sees how good the countryside is

and how pleasant the land,

he will bend his shoulder to the load

and submit himself to hard labor.

¹⁶“Dan will govern his people,

like any other tribe in Israel.

¹⁷Dan will be a snake beside the road,

a poisonous viper along the path

that bites the horse’s hooves

so its rider is thrown off.

¹⁸I trust in you for salvation, O Lord!

¹⁹“Gad will be attacked by marauding bands,

but he will attack them when they retreat.

²⁰“Asher will dine on rich foods

and produce food fit for kings.

²¹“Naphtali is a doe set free

that bears beautiful fawns.

²²“Joseph is the foal of a wild donkey,

the foal of a wild donkey at a spring—

one of the wild donkeys on the ridge.

²³Archers attacked him savagely;

they shot at him and harassed him.

²⁴But his bow remained taut,

and his arms were strengthened

by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,

by the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.

²⁵May the God of your father help you;

May the Almighty bless you

with the blessings of the heavens above,

and blessings of the watery depths below,

and blessings of the breasts and womb.

²⁶May my fatherly blessings on you

surpass the blessings of my ancestors,

reaching to the heights of the eternal hills.

May these blessings rest on the head of Joseph,

who is a prince among his brothers.

²⁷“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,

devouring his enemies in the morning

and dividing his plunder in the evening.”

²⁸These are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said as he told his sons good-bye. He blessed each one with an appropriate message.

Jacob’s Death and Burial

²⁹Then Jacob instructed them, “Soon I will die and join my ancestors. Bury me with my father and grandfather in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite. ³⁰This is the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a permanent burial site. ³¹There Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried. There Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, are buried. And there I buried Leah. ³²It is the plot of land and the cave that my grandfather Abraham bought from the Hittites.”

³³When Jacob had finished this charge to his sons, he drew his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and joined his ancestors in death.

Chapter 50

Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. ²Then Joseph told the physicians who served him to embalm his father’s body; so Jacob was embalmed. ³The embalming process took the usual forty days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for seventy days.

⁴When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh’s advisers and said, “Please do me this favor and speak to Pharaoh on my behalf. ⁵Tell him that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, ‘Listen, I am about to die. Take my body back to the land of Canaan, and bury me in the tomb I prepared for myself.’ So please allow me to go and bury my father. After his burial, I will return without delay.”

⁶Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise,” he said. ⁷So Joseph went up to bury his father. He was accompanied by all of Pharaoh’s officials, all the senior members of Pharaoh’s household, and all the senior officers of Egypt. ⁸Joseph also took his entire household and his brothers and their households. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. ⁹A great number of chariots and charioteers accompanied Joseph.

¹⁰When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn memorial service, with a seven-day period of mourning for Joseph’s father. ¹¹The local residents, the Canaanites, watched them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. Then they renamed that place (which is near the Jordan) Abel-mizraim, for they said, “This is a place of deep mourning for these Egyptians.”

¹²So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them. ¹³They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the cave that Abraham had bought as a permanent burial site from Ephron the Hittite.

Joseph Reassures His Brothers

¹⁴After burying Jacob, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father’s burial. ¹⁵But now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became fearful. “Now Joseph will show his anger and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him,” they said.

¹⁶So they sent this message to Joseph: “Before your father died, he instructed us ¹⁷to say to you: ‘Please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you—for their sin in treating you so cruelly.’ So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin.” When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept. ¹⁸Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. “Look, we are your slaves!” they said.

¹⁹But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? ²⁰You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. ²¹No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.

The Death of Joseph

²²So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. ²³He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, whom he claimed as his own.

²⁴“Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

²⁵Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, “When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with you.” ²⁶So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.