Genesis 49

Notes

1. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "in the last days" (KJV) / "in days to come" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 46

   בְּאַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים is "in the after-part of the days." The phrase recurs in Balaam's oracle (Num 24:14), in Moses' warnings (Deut 4:30; 31:29), and in the prophets for the time when the nations stream to Zion (Isa 2:2; Mic 4:1; Hos 3:5; Dan 10:14). The LXX has ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν "at the last of the days," and from it comes the eschatological reading. The RSV's "in days to come" makes it only the future. The rabbis took Jacob to be about to reveal the end and to have been stopped. Genesis Rabbah 98:2 and Targum Neofiti say the Presence departed from him; b. Pesahim 56a says his sons answered him with the Shema, "Hear, Israel," as v. 2 invites. "Latter end" keeps the noun (אַחֲרִית, from אַחַר "after") and decides neither way. "Meet" is קָרָא II, "what shall meet you" (42:4, 38; 44:29).

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 81, 14, 102

   Jacob's words to his sons (49:2–27) are lined by the translator under ruling 81(b). The Leningrad Codex runs them as prose, with the section marks of each tribe. They are built of parallel cola throughout, and the colons follow the accents (14): each verse divides at its atnach, and a long half divides again at its zaqef. Verse 1 and vv. 28–33 are prose. "Be collected" is the niphal of קָבַץ, kept apart from אָסַף "gather" (v. 1) by the row; "hear… and hear Israel" is the summons of Deut 6:4.

3. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power" (KJV) / "pre-eminent in pride and pre-eminent in power" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20, 1

   יֶתֶר is "excess, what is over," and שְׂאֵת is "a lifting," the bare infinitive of 4:7, filed apart by Strong's. The firstborn's lifting is his rank and the double share, and Reuben is twice "in excess." עָז is pointed as the adjective "fierce" (v. 7) but stands here as a noun, so it is printed "fierceness," a split by construction declared in its row. "The beginning of my vigor" (רֵאשִׁית אוֹנִי) is the firstborn in Deut 21:17 and Ps 78:51; Rachel's dying name for Benjamin, Ben-oni (35:18), may be heard in אוֹן. Reuben is the first son of the chapter, and the lifting he has in excess is what he loses in v. 4.

4. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "Unstable as water" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 25, 1

   פַּחַז is found only here. Its verb is "reckless" in Judg 9:4 ("reckless men") and Zeph 3:4 ("her prophets are reckless"), and the noun פַּחֲזוּת is "recklessness" in Jer 23:32. Aramaic and Syriac use the root for wantonness and lust, which fits Reuben's deed (35:22). The versions take the water figure: the LXX ἐξύβρισας ὡς ὕδωρ "you burst out insolently like water," the Vulgate effusus es sicut aqua "you were poured out like water," Targum Onkelos "you went your own way like water." "Boiling over" keeps the water and the loss of control together. The KJV's "unstable" names only the second.

5. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "thou shalt not excel" (KJV) / "you shall not have pre-eminence" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20, 17

   תּוֹתַר is the hiphil of יָתַר, whose row has only the niphal "remain." The hiphil is "make abound, have excess" (Deut 28:11; 30:9), and here it answers יֶתֶר "excess" in v. 3: Reuben had excess twice over, and he shall not have excess. The packet shows no earlier printing of this stem (unknown); the split is ruled (136). The pun is kept by printing the verb with the noun's English (17).

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 74, 19

   The deed is 35:22, Reuben's lying with Bilhah, his father's concubine; 1 Chr 5:1 says that for it his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph. "The lying-places of your father" is plural, as the "lyings of a woman" in Lev 18:22. The Hebrew turns in mid-line from "you" to "he": "then you profaned—my couch he went up." The LXX and the Peshitta smooth it to the second person, and Targum Onkelos supplies the object ("you profaned the couch you went up to"). The Masoretic text is printed with its break, which is the father turning away from the son as he speaks. Rashi reads it so: the father speaks of Reuben in the third person because the deed cannot be said to his face.

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "instruments of cruelty are in their habitations" (KJV) / "weapons of violence are their swords" (RSV)

   Rulings 133, 1, 25

   מְכֵרֹתֵיהֶם is found only here, and its meaning is not recovered, so it is transliterated (133d). The readings: (a) "their swords," from Greek μάχαιρα (Genesis Rabbah 99:6 and Rashi, citing the Greek; the RSV); (b) "their origins, habitations," from מְכוּרָה "origin" (Ezek 16:3; 21:35; the KJV after Kimhi); (c) "their counsels, plots," from כָּרָה "plan" (2 Kgs 6:23); the LXX συνετέλεσαν ἀδικίαν ἐξ αἱρέσεως αὐτῶν "they accomplished injustice out of their choosing" and the Vulgate vasa iniquitatis bellantia go their own ways; (d) "their bargains," from מָכַר "sell," the sale of Joseph (37:27–28), in which Simeon and Levi are held to have led (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan). "Articles of violence" are כְּלֵי חָמָס, and the deed is the slaughter at Shechem (34:25–31). The WPRB prints "swords," the reading the parallel "articles" supports.

8. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "mine honour" (KJV) / "my spirit" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 1

   כְּבֹדִי is "my glory" (31:1, H3519), parallel to נַפְשִׁי "my soul." The LXX τὰ ἥπατά μου "my livers" reads כְּבֵדִי "my liver," the organ of feeling, and modern versions follow it here and at Ps 16:9; 30:13; 57:9; 108:2, where "my glory" also stands beside the heart or soul. The Masoretic text is printed. כָּבוֹד is "glory" in every book (129k), and the person's weight and honour is a sense it has (45:13). "Secret" is סוֹד, the circle of the confided (Jer 23:18; Amos 3:7).

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "and in their selfwill they digged down a wall" (KJV) / "and in their wantonness they hamstring oxen" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 25, 19

   The Masoretic text has שׁוֹר "ox," and עִקֵּר is "hamstring," the cutting of a beast's tendons (Josh 11:6, 9; 2 Sam 8:4). The KJV follows a reading שׁוּר "wall": Targum Onkelos "they tore down the wall of their enemy," the Vulgate suffoderunt murum. No ketiv stands behind it. At Shechem the brothers took the oxen alive (34:28), so the hamstrung ox is a figure for wanton harm, as the parallel "they killed a man" makes it. "In their nose" is "in their anger" (39). רָצוֹן is "will" (Ps 40:9; Esth 1:8), what they pleased.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 74

    The curse falls on the anger, not on the men. The two tribes were in fact dispersed: Simeon's lot lies inside Judah's (Josh 19:1–9) and later disappears from Moses' blessing (Deut 33); Levi received cities but no land (Num 18:20–24; Josh 21). Deut 33:8–11 and Exod 32:26–29 turn Levi's zeal into the priesthood, so the scattering becomes a gift. "Portion" is חָלַק (95, 118), "scatter" the verb of 11:4, 8–9.

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 128

    "Judah… confess you" is the pun of his naming, יְהוּדָה with אוֹדֶה "I will confess" (29:35; 128j). English holds it only with the home gloss, which keeps the verb's sense of open acknowledgement. Judah had confessed at 38:26 ("she is more just than I") and stood surety at 43:9 and 44:18–34. "Your brothers shall… prostrate themselves to you" turns Joseph's dreams (37:7–10) to Judah. The nape of the enemy is the fleeing enemy seized from behind (Exod 23:27; Ps 18:41).

12. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    טֶרֶף "prey" is the noun of טָרַף "tear" (133a), the verb of Jacob's cry over Joseph's coat, "Joseph is torn, torn" (37:33; 44:28). Genesis Rabbah 98:7 and Rashi hear it: "from the prey," from the suspicion that you tore Joseph, "you have gone up," since it was Judah who said "let us not kill him" (37:26). Balaam's oracles take up the lion and lioness and the question "who shall make him stand?" (Num 23:24; 24:9). Rev 5:5 calls Christ "the lion of the tribe of Judah." The hiphil of קוּם is "make stand" (122d): who will rouse the lion that lies down.

13. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "sceptre" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 39, 2, 20

    שֵׁבֶט is the rod: a shepherd's (Ps 23:4; Lev 27:32), a rod for striking (Exod 21:20; Prov 13:24), and the rod of rule, the sceptre (Num 24:17; Ps 2:9; 45:7). The same word names the tribes that carry it (vv. 16, 28), a split by construction declared in its row (20). "Rod" keeps the material word (39). Num 24:17 joins it to the star of Jacob, and the two verses were read together, in the Targums and in Christian writers, as the promise of a king.

14. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a lawgiver" (KJV) / "the ruler's staff" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25

    מְחֹקֵק is the participle of חָקַק "inscribe, decree": the one who decrees (Prov 8:15 "rulers decree justice"; Isa 10:1; Judg 5:9, 14), or, in parallel with שֵׁבֶט, the staff of the one who decrees (Num 21:18, "with the decreer, with their staffs"; Ps 60:9). "From between his feet" fits a staff resting between the feet of a seated ruler, and also offspring, as in Deut 28:57; Targum Onkelos has "nor the scribe from his children's children." "One decreeing" keeps the participle and holds the person and his office; the staff is in this note.

15. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "until Shiloh come" (KJV) / "until he comes to whom it belongs" (RSV)

    Rulings 133, 1, 46, 19

    The ketiv is שילה, the qere שִׁילוֹ; the sense is not changed. The word is not recovered, and it is transliterated (133d). The readings divide as follows. (a) שֶׁלּוֹ "he whose it is," with the old relative שֶׁ: the LXX ἕως ἂν ἔλθῃ τὰ ἀποκείμενα αὐτῷ "until the things laid up for him come" (other Greek witnesses ᾧ ἀπόκειται "he for whom it is laid up"), Ezek 21:32 ("until he comes whose is the judgment"), the Peshitta, the RSV. (b) A name of the Anointed: Targum Onkelos "until the anointed one comes, whose is the kingdom," Targum Neofiti "until the time when the king, the anointed one, comes"; b. Sanhedrin 98b, "Shiloh is his name"; Genesis Rabbah 98:8; Rashi. Christian interpreters from Justin Martyr (First Apology 32) took it of Christ, and the Vulgate translated donec veniat qui mittendus est "until he comes who is to be sent," reading שָׁלוּחַ. (c) The town: "until he comes to Shiloh," where the ark stood (Josh 18:1; 1 Sam 4:12, which has the same verb and form). (d) שַׁי לֹה "tribute to him," with a repointing (Isa 18:7; Ps 76:12), followed by NJPS, "so that tribute shall come to him," which also suits the next colon. The Masoretic syntax is printed, with Shiloh as the subject of "comes" and its meaning left in the Hebrew letters.

16. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "and unto him shall the gathering of the people be" (KJV) / "and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples" (RSV)

    Ruling 25

    יִקְּהַת occurs again only at Prov 30:17, "the eye that… despises obedience to a mother," where the parallel is "mocks a father." The KJV's "gathering" takes it from קָהַל "assemble," and the LXX προσδοκία "expectation" from קָוָה. The verse is verbless and stays so (13).

17. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 19, 79

    בְּנִי here is not "my son" (v. 9) but the old construct "son of," with a connecting vowel, like אֹסְרִי "binding" at the head of the line: "the son of his she-donkey." The ketiv has the old suffix ־ה in עירה and סותה; the qere reads ־וֹ. The sense is the same, so the qere is printed without comment in the line (19). The verse pictures plenty: a vine so strong a donkey can be tied to it, wine so common it washes clothes. Zech 9:9 takes up the foal and the son of she-donkeys for the coming king, and Matt 21:2–7 and John 12:14–15 read the entry into Jerusalem through it. The robe washed "in the blood of grapes" is behind Isa 63:1–3 and Rev 19:13.

18. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25

    חַכְלִילִי occurs only here; the noun חַכְלִלוּת at Prov 23:29 is the drunkard's "dimness of eyes." The colour is dark or dull rather than red, which is אָדֹם (25:30). The LXX χαροποιοὶ οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ οἴνου "his eyes gladdening from wine" takes it as sparkle. The two מִן may be causal, "from wine… from milk," or comparative, "darker than wine… whiter than milk," which Targum Onkelos and Rashi read: the hills red with vineyards, the valleys white with flocks. English "from" holds the cause; the comparison is in this note.

19. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "his border shall be unto Zidon" (KJV) / "his border shall be at Sidon" (RSV)

    Rulings 39, 2

    יַרְכָה is the far or hind part: the rear of the tabernacle (Exod 26:22, 27), "the recesses of your house" (Ps 128:3), "the far reaches of the north" (Isa 14:13). It is of the root of יָרֵךְ "thigh" (24:2; 32:26), and "border" is גְּבוּל's. Zebulun's lot did not touch the sea in Josh 19:10–16; Deut 33:18–19 gives him "the abundance of the seas," and Isa 8:23 (Matt 4:15) "the way of the sea."

20. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "a strong ass couching down between two burdens" (KJV) / "a strong ass, crouching between the sheepfolds" (RSV)

    Rulings 25, 2

    גֶּרֶם is "bone" (Prov 17:22; Job 40:18): "a donkey of bone," a big-framed beast of burden. "Bone" is עֶצֶם's, so the adjective is printed. מִשְׁפְּתַיִם is a dual found again only in Judg 5:16, where Reuben sits "among the folds" to hear the piping for the flocks; the sense is two pens or two loads, saddlebags on either side (the KJV's "burdens"). Issachar lies down under the load he ought to carry.

21. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 18, 104

    Issachar's name was explained by שָׂכָר "wage" (30:18), the hire of a man; here the hired man becomes מַס עֹבֵד "serving forced labor," the corvée gang (Josh 16:10; 1 Kgs 9:21). Because he saw that rest was good he bent the shoulder (שְׁכֶם, the word of 48:22). הָיָה with לְ of result is "become" (104). Rashi turns it to praise: he bent his shoulder to bear the yoke of Torah. The Targums agree.

22. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 17, 2

    Dan's name was explained by דָּנַנִּי "he has held court for me" (30:6), and here דָּן יָדִין, "Dan shall hold court." English cannot keep the name and the verb together, so the pun stays here (17). דִּין with a people as object is to vindicate it (Deut 32:36 "Adonai will hold court for his people") or to govern it; "for" is printed, and the governing is noted. Samson the Danite judged Israel (Judg 13–16), and the rabbis read vv. 16–18 of him.

23. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    "Heels" is עָקֵב, the word of the serpent's curse (3:15 "you shall bruise his heel") and of Jacob's name (25:26; 27:36). Here the serpent strikes the heel and the rider falls. Jacob's last poem uses his own name-word for Dan and again for Gad (v. 19). The horse appears here in Genesis' poetry for the first time; "backward" is אָחוֹר, one root with אֲחֹרַנִּית (9:23) (136k).

24. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 20, 46

    The cry interrupts the tribes and is the only time Jacob names ADONAI in the poem. קִוִּיתִי is the piel of קָוָה, whose niphal is "be pooled" (1:9; the waters gathered). The piel is to wait for, to hope (Ps 25:5; 40:2; Isa 40:31). "Wait" is יָחַל's, so the piel is printed "hope," a split by stem; the packet shows no earlier printing of the piel (unknown). The qatal is a perfect (15). יְשׁוּעָה is fixed here as "rescue." It is the help that brings someone out of danger: from Pharaoh's army (Exod 14:13), in battle (1 Sam 14:45; 2 Sam 23:10), and from enemies (Ps 3:3, 9). The English tradition's "salvation" turns a concrete act into a doctrine, and the WPRB keeps "rescue." The names יְהוֹשֻׁעַ "Joshua," יֵשׁוּעַ "Jeshua" and Ἰησοῦς "Jesus" (Matt 1:21, "for he will rescue his people") are of this root. Targum Neofiti and Pseudo-Jonathan put Jacob's words thus: "not for the rescue of Gideon, nor for the rescue of Samson, but for your rescue I wait," after the Danite Samson of v. 17. Both the gloss and the split are ruled (136).

25. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 24, 17, 19

    The verse is a chain of sound on Gad: גָּד גְּדוּד יְגוּדֶנּוּ וְהוּא יָגֻד, gad gedud yegudennu wehu yagud. English keeps "troop… raid… raid" and loses the name; the alliteration is in the Hebrew (24). Gad's name was explained as "fortune" (30:11). עָקֵב "heel" ends the line. The LXX and the Peshitta join the first letter of v. 20 to it, עֲקֵבָם "their heel," and read "he shall raid their heel," that is, pursue them. Deut 33:20 has Gad "tearing the arm and the scalp."

26. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 74, 17

    מֵאָשֵׁר "Out of Asher" begins the verse with מִן, which the other tribes' sayings lack; the LXX, the Vulgate and the Peshitta read only "Asher," taking the מ with v. 19 (see the note there). The Masoretic text is printed. Asher was named for "happiness" (30:13), and the saying is of rich food. "Dainties" (מַעֲדַנִּים) is of the root of עֵדֶן "Eden," the garden of delight; Deut 33:24 gives Asher a foot dipped in oil.

27. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words" (KJV) / "Naphtali is a hind let loose, that bears comely fawns" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25

    אַיָּלָה שְׁלֻחָה is "a hind sent forth," the passive participle of שָׁלַח "send": a deer let go to run free. אִמְרֵי שָׁפֶר is "sayings of comeliness," with אֵמֶר from אָמַר "say" and שֶׁפֶר "beauty" (Aramaic שְׁפַר "be fair"). The RSV repoints אִמְּרֵי as "lambs, young" (Aramaic אִמְּרָא) and reads "fawns." The LXX reads the first noun as אֵלָה "terebinth": στέλεχος ἀνειμένον, ἐπιδιδοὺς ἐν τῷ γενήματι κάλλος "a stem let loose, putting forth beauty in its fruit." The participle הַנֹּתֵן "the one giving" is masculine, so the giver is Naphtali, not the hind. The Masoretic text is printed. Barak of Naphtali and Deborah's song (Judg 4–5) were read into it by the Targums.

28. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall" (KJV) / "Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring; his branches run over the wall" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 2, 125

    בֵּן פֹּרָת is "son of a bearing-fruit": פֹּרָת is the feminine participle of פָּרָה "bear fruit," the verb of Ephraim's name (41:52; 48:4). "Son" is a shoot of a plant, as the "bough" of the versions takes it, and בָּנוֹת "daughters" in the third line are then its branches; the singular verb צָעֲדָה "she strides" with the plural "daughters" is a distributive singular, each of them. The second reading takes פֹּרָת as פֶּרֶא "wild ass" (16:12) and the daughters as wild she-asses on a ridge (Speiser; NJPS margin). The rabbis read the daughters as the women of Egypt climbing the wall to see Joseph's beauty (Targum Neofiti; Genesis Rabbah 98:18; Rashi). "A fruit-bearing son" keeps the home gloss and leaves plant and person open. עַיִן is "eye," also a spring (16:7, 125m); the WPRB has "spring."

29. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 123, 2

    וָרֹבּוּ is tagged H7232, a verb "shoot" that Strong's lists for this verse and Ps 18:15; ruling 123(e) joined the archer רֹבֶה (21:20) to it as a homograph of רָבָה "be many." Targum Onkelos reads רִיב "quarrel": "they quarreled with him." "The owners of arrows" are archers; Rashi takes them to be his brothers and Potiphar's wife, whose words were arrows. "Be hostile to" is the verb of Esau (27:41) and of the brothers' fear in 50:15.

30. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong" (KJV) / "yet his bow remained unmoved, his arms were made agile" (RSV)

    Rulings 25, 1, 135

    אֵיתָן is "permanence," what does not fail: the perennial stream (Deut 21:4; Amos 5:24), the sea returning to its steady flow (Exod 14:27). The bow "dwelt in permanence," held without slackening; יָשַׁב takes "dwell" where the line names where (135n). פָּזַז is "be nimble," to be quick and agile, as David "leaping" (2 Sam 6:16); the KJV "made strong" follows the Targum. Some hear פָּז "fine gold" and read "his arms were gilded." Genesis Rabbah 98:20 and b. Sotah 36b read the verse of Joseph's restraint before Potiphar's wife: the bow is his manhood, and the hands of the Valiant One of Jacob held it firm.

31. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel)" (KJV) / "the Mighty One of Jacob (by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel)" (RSV)

    Rulings 2, 9, 46

    אֲבִיר יַעֲקֹב is a title of Elohim found again at Ps 132:2, 5 and Isa 49:26; 60:16 (Isa 1:24 "of Israel"). The Masoretic pointing sets it apart from אַבִּיר "valiant one, stallion, bull" (Judg 5:22; Ps 22:13; 50:13), and some readers hear the bull-image of Elohim behind it (Exod 32; 1 Kgs 12:28). "Mighty one" is גִּבּוֹר's (6:4), so the title is printed "the Valiant One," which keeps the root sense and the title; the gloss is ruled (136c). מִשָּׁם "from there" is the Masoretic pointing; the Peshitta and Targum Onkelos and the RSV read מִשֵּׁם "by the name of." "The Shepherd" takes up 48:15, and "the Stone of Israel" the stone Jacob set up at Bethel (28:18–22; 35:14). Isa 28:16 and Ps 118:22 later speak of a stone that Adonai lays, and 1 Pet 2:4–8 reads them of Christ. "Rock" is left for צוּר.

32. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "and by the Almighty" (KJV) / "by God Almighty" (RSV)

    Rulings 9, 74

    The Masoretic text has וְאֵת שַׁדַּי "and with Shaddai," the preposition אֵת as in "with Adonai" (4:1). The Samaritan Pentateuch, the LXX (ὁ θεὸς ὁ ἐμός), the Peshitta and Targum Onkelos have וְאֵל שַׁדַּי "and El Shaddai," the name of 17:1; 35:11; 48:3. The Masoretic text is printed, so the line begins "from the El of your father… and with Shaddai." Shaddai stands alone as a name here and in Job (9).

33. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "blessings of the breasts, and of the womb" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 17, 127

    שָׁדַיִם "breasts" sounds after Shaddai, who blesses: shaddai… shadayim. English cannot carry the sound with the home glosses, so it stays in this note (17). וָרָחַם is the singular רֶחֶם "womb" (20:18; 29:31; 30:22), in pause. The source tags it H7356, the plural רַחֲמִים "mercy," and the tag is kept and "womb" printed as a logged departure (127d), as the singular's sense requires. The three pairs run from top to bottom: skies above, Abyss below, breasts and womb, the blessings of rain, springs and birth. Deut 33:13 repeats the first two. The Abyss "crouching" (רֹבֶצֶת) is the verb of the beast at the door in 4:7 and of Judah in v. 9.

34. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills" (KJV) / "The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 25

    הוֹרַי is the participle of הָרָה "conceive," "those who conceived me," Jacob's parents; Song 3:4 uses הוֹרָתִי "the one who conceived me" of a mother. The LXX reads הַרְרֵי עַד "mountains of perpetuity," and with Deut 33:15 ("the hills of the age") the RSV follows it. תַּאֲוַת is "the limit of," from the root of Num 34:7–10 "mark out a border," a homograph of תַּאֲוָה "craving" (3:6), which the RSV's "bounties" takes. The Masoretic text is printed: the father's blessings outstrip his parents' and reach to the edge of the ancient hills. The qatal גָּבְרוּ is a perfect (15).

35. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "him that was separate from his brethren" (KJV) / "him who is separate from his brothers" (RSV)

    Rulings 5, 2, 18

    נְזִיר is the Nazirite, one set apart by vow (Num 6:2–21; Judg 13:5–7; Amos 2:11–12). The word is also used of a prince set apart for rule (Lam 4:7; Deut 33:16, which repeats this line), and of the vine left untrimmed in the sabbath year (Lev 25:5, 11). The KJV and RSV give the root's sense, "separate," but "separate" is פָּרַד's. "Nazirite" is the Hebrew word already in English (5), and keeps the consecration with the separation. Joseph was set apart from his brothers by their act (37) and by his rank (41:40–44). The rabbis add that he kept himself from wine in the years of separation (b. Shabbat 139a; Genesis Rabbah 98:20).

36. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 25, 2

    עַד "booty" (Isa 33:23; Zeph 3:8) is a homograph of עַד "until"; Targum Onkelos and Rashi turn the verse to the priesthood and the altar in Benjamin's land. The tribe's wolfishness is shown in the war of Judg 19–21 and in its warrior sons (Judg 3:15; 20:16). Saul was a Benjaminite, and so was Paul (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5); Tertullian (Against Marcion 5.1) read the wolf who devours in the morning and divides the spoil in the evening as Paul, persecutor and then apostle.

37. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 20, 6

    שֵׁבֶט "tribe" is the people side of the split (see the note at v. 10): the rod is the tribe's mark. "Twelve" is שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר. The line closes the poem with three words of the root בָּרַךְ: "he blessed them, each man according to his blessing he blessed them." Reuben, Simeon and Levi received rebuke, and the narrator still calls the whole a blessing.

38. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    "Gathered to my people" is the formula of Abraham's death (25:8), Ishmael's (25:17) and Isaac's (35:29), and the chapter closes with it in v. 33. Here the noun is singular, עַמִּי, and in v. 33 plural, עַמָּיו "his peoples," as in 25:8. "Bury me to my fathers" keeps אֶל: the burial is a joining. The purchase is 23:3–20; Jacob made Joseph swear to it at 47:29–31.

39. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "The purchase of the field" (KJV, RSV)

    Rulings 2, 127

    מִקְנֵה here is the purchase, the sense of מִקְנָה "acquisition" (H4736; 23:18; 17:12–13). The source tags it H4735, whose home gloss is "livestock." Both are nouns of קָנָה "acquire." The tag is kept and "acquisition" printed as a logged departure (127d).

40. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 2, 37

    Jacob dies sitting on the bed he sat up on in 48:2, and gathers his feet into it. "Expired" is גָּוַע, the verb of 25:8, 17 and 35:29; the word "died" is not used of Jacob here, and b. Ta'anit 5b draws from it the saying "Jacob our father did not die."