Brian Somers Torah: Genesis 47:28 – 50:26
Haftarah: I kings 2:1-12
Brit Chadassah/New Testament: I Peter 1:1-9
In this study of the Torah, I have been trying to show how a man should apply the tenets of the Torah to daily life. In this particular combination of the last three chapters of Genesis with the first twelve verses of the second chapter of the First Book of Kings, we see an opportunity to consider how a dying man, at the end of his life, who is blessed to die in bed in peace, goes about finishing his affairs. We also will consider how the manner of one’s life determines his reward.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to die at peace in one’s own bed with full faculties of mind and spirit. But for these blessed ones, knowing life’s ending is coming, it is a time of reflection over one’s life, and looking ahead to what may be in store for one’s children. So it is with Israel and King David.
Genesis 47:28-31 records the first item on Israel’s agenda as he prepares to exit this life. He wanted to be buried in Canaan in the family cave of Machpelah in Hebron next to his parents and Leah.
28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years; so the length of Jacob’s life was 147 years. 29 When the time for Israel to die drew near, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “Please, if I have found favor in your sight, place your hand under my thigh now and deal with me in kindness and faithfulness: please do not bury me in Egypt, 30 but when I lie down with my fathers, you shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.” And he said, “I will do as you have said.” 31 And he said, “Swear to me.” So he swore to him. Then Israel bowed in worship at the head of the bed.
Genesis 47:28-31
He requested this favor of his son Joseph, who had the power to make this happen as the number two ruler of Egypt.
The next item on the agenda was to adopt and bless Manasseh and Ephraim.
2 When it was told to Jacob, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel collected his strength and sat up in the bed. 3 Then Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, 4 and He said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a multitude of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ 5 Now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are.
Genesis 48:2-5
The custom was to give the firstborn the authority and resources to be the next leader of the family. Issac had received everything from Abraham, his father, less what Ishmael received in his blessing and the gifts given to the sons of the concubines that were sent away. Israel in his turn had received everything from Isaac less what Esau was given. Now, all of these blessings that Israel had received from Abraham and Isaac was now to be passed on to his twelve sons. The question was, should Reuben receive the blessings that normally go to the firstborn? What would be given to the other sons if that had happened?
By choosing to adopt Manasseh and Ephraim, Joseph in effect was replaced as a single tribe by his two sons who became two tribes. As Israel said to Joseph, “I give you one portion more than your brothers” (Genesis 48:22).
Let’s review just what Ephraim and Manasseh received in their blessings.
First of all, it was with deep, deepest joy that Israel saw the children of Joseph, who he had thought was dead. He delighted in blessing them.
And Joseph brought them close to him, and he kissed them and embraced them. 11 And Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face, and behold, God has let me see your children as well!”
Genesis 48:10-11
So Manasseh as the elder was guided to his grandfather’s right hand, while Ephraim as the younger was guided to Israel’s left hand. But Israel confounded everyone by crossing his arms and placing his right hand on younger Ephraim’s head and his left hand on the older Manasseh’s head. He did this in full knowledge of what would happen in the future.
13 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right, and brought them close to him. 14 But Israel reached out his right hand and placed it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, crossing his hands, although Manasseh was the firstborn. 15 And he blessed Joseph, and said,
“The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,
16 The angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless the boys;
And may my name live on in them,
And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;
And may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
17 When Joseph saw that his father placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him; and he grasped his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18 And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head.” 19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know; he also will become a people and he also will be great. However, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”
Genesis 48:13-19
By blessing the boys Ephraim and Manasseh, Israel was blessing Joseph. He called on the One whom He had met at Luz and served ever since. He named Him as Father, Ruach Kodesh and the Son. Israel asked Him to bless the boys by letting his name “Israel” live on in them and also put on them the names of his fathers Abraham and Isaac. He also blessed them with great population growth in the midst of the earth.
Names are a powerful thing. Names or nicknames say something about or describe who a person is. Ephraim and Manasseh were jointly given the name Israel. It was their name, and not the name of their brothers. All of them were the Sons of Israel, but Ephraim and Manasseh alone were Israel. They two also bore the name of Abraham and Isaac. Those names were borne by their descendants forward into time and exile. Identifying those names helps identify who their descendants are. While the Jews never lost their identity as an identifiable tribe of Jacob, those descended from and allied with Manasseh and Ephraim never lost their names, even when wandering among the nations (see Hosea 8:8, 9:17). Israel gave them a precious gift: their descendants would not be lost to time nor history while in exile. They might be swallowed up among the Gentiles like Jonah was swallowed up in a whale, but as Jonah came out of the whale, so too shall the descendants of Israel come out of the Gentiles, known by their fathers’ names.
The promise of becoming a multitude of peoples were also given to Ephraim and Manasseh. Hosea referred to this in his prophecy that in exile, the tribes of Israel would become greatly numerous (Hosea 1:10). Yet, as Israel noted in response to Joseph’s objection, Ephraim the younger son would become the greater terms of becoming a company of nations. Manasseh would become a single great nation.
Another way in which the memory of Manasseh and Ephraim would not be lost was the prophecy that the Jews would bless their children by the blessing:
“By you Israel will pronounce blessing, saying,
Genesis 48:20
‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh!’”
But perhaps most important of all, the blessing of Manasseh and Ephraim included within it the knowledge and wisdom that YHVH Elohim was much more than a simple unitary ONE. He was and is a compound ONE. When that wisdom is combined with the sign of the crossed arms, it becomes easier to identify where many of the descendants of the ten tribes can be found: within Christendom.
Having given Joseph a double portion and adopting Ephraim and Manasseh as his sons, Israel now called for the rest of his sons to gather around him so they could hear how he would bless each of them.
Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Assemble yourselves, so that I may tell you what will happen to you in the days to come.
Genesis 49:1-2
2 Gather together and listen, sons of Jacob;
Yes, listen to Israel your father.
Reuben was the firstborn and to him would normally go the pre-eminence among the sons of Israel.
This is what the Torah says:
15 “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved, and both the loved and the unloved have borne him sons, and the firstborn son belongs to the unloved, 16 then it shall be on the day that he wills what he owns as an inheritance to his sons, he is not allowed to treat the son of the loved wife as the firstborn, at the expense of the son of the unloved, who actually is the firstborn son. 17 On the contrary, he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved wife, by giving him a double portion of everything that he owns, for he was the beginning of his strength; to him belongs the right of the firstborn.
Deuteronomy 21:15-17
Moses made it clear that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah in the beginning; that’s not in dispute. It is also not in dispute that Rachel’s womb was closed because YHVH saw that Leah was unloved (Genesis 29:31). Logic would seem to say that when YHVH opened Rachel’s womb, Jacob had learned to love Leah. Rachel was not buried in the family cave, but Leah was. At this time, both wives had been dead for some years. To Joseph, Jacob acknowledged both his wives’ different burial places and that seemed to imply was now the only difference between the two, other than the number of children they bore him. Therefore, both of his wives had been loved since Rachel got pregnant with Joseph, and the above statute did not apply when Israel blessed his sons. Through the Ruach, Israel could see far into the future and bless each son as the Ruach directed, such as when he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
For Reuben:
3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
Genesis 49:3-4
My might and the beginning of my strength,
Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
4 Uncontrollable 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.
Israel acknowledges that Reuben was his firstborn. As his first son, Reuben was the beginning of Israel’s rise to become a nation, thus the dignity and power that by right was Reuben’s. Yet, because Reuben had a serious character flaw and made a really bad decision, he would not be awarded the pre-eminence and double portion of the first-born.
Reuben was unstable in his actions and decision-making. He wandered away instead of following through and making sure Joseph was safe and sent home. He went along with his brothers’ lie to their father that Joseph had been killed by wild animals. But before that, Reuben had lain with his father’s concubine, and violated his father’s marital rights. According to the Torah, the punishment for this is death, which is the maximum. Israel chose, instead, to give the pre-eminence of the first-born to someone else. How much difference is there between physically executing a person and taking away the birthright?
His shame was recorded for all time as the Chronicler noted:
Now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel (for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, the son of Israel; so he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright. 2 Though Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came the leader, yet the birthright belonged to Joseph)
I Chronicles 5:1-2
Simeon and Levi were next addressed together.
5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;
Genesis 49:5-7
Their swords are implements of violence.
6 May my soul not enter into their council;
May my glory not be united with their assembly;
For in their anger they killed men,
And in their self-will they lamed oxen.
7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;
And their wrath, for it is cruel.
I will scatter them in Jacob,
And disperse them among Israel.
Simeon and Levi were the ones who killed the weakened men of Shechem for their prince’s rape of their sister Dinah. Laming the oxen may have also happened during that episode. Their abusive and murderous anger disqualified them from pre-eminence. Further, they would be scattered in Israel. On the one hand, that’s not a blessing for them. But on the other hand, scattering them in Israel prevents them from causing disaster for the other tribes and provides each tribe with a “leavening” of violent men who put the honor of their family first. Arguably, Israel blessed them by reducing their opportunities to get into trouble and instead help their brothers.
Judah is the fourth son of Leah and Israel turns to him.
8 “As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you;
Genesis 49:8-12
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 cub;
From the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches, he lies down as a lion,
And as a lion, who dares to stir him up?
10 The scepter will 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 dull from wine,
And his teeth white from milk.
There is a lot here, but the key thing is that after passing over his first three sons by Leah, Israel is giving Judah the pre-eminence among his brothers. Where before, the brothers bowed to Joseph according to his dreams, in the future, all of the brothers, including Joseph, will bow to Judah because the ruler will come from him. Judah is compared to the lion, known as the king of beasts, and someone who will possess military might and skill, as well as economic blessings related to wine and milk.
Genesis chapter 38 records Judah’s family issues and chapters 43-44 record how Judah stood up and took responsibility for Benjamin so the family as a whole could buy grain from Egypt. Judah was also the one to stand up to Joseph and plead for Benjamin to return to his father while offering to exchange himself for Benjamin. Judah learned what it meant to rule in righteousness and take responsibility. Therefore, he merited receiving the sceptre as well as the other blessings. As the Chronicler noted, Judah prevailed above his brethren.
I would like to consider Zebulun and Issachar together. In birth order, Issachar is the fifth son of Leah and Zebulun is the sixth and last son of Leah. But in their blessings, Zebulun preceded Issachar. Neither son stood out during their lives. When Leah gave birth to and named these babies, their names indicate something special was going on.
17 God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son. 18 Then Leah said, “God has given me my reward, because I gave my slave to my husband.” So she named him Issachar. 19 And Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob. 20 Then Leah said, “God has endowed me with a good gift; finally my husband will acknowledge me as his wife, because I have borne him six sons.” So she named him Zebulun.
Genesis 30:18-20
Issachar became a living memorial of YHVH’s blessing to Leah for her giving her slave maid Zilpah to her husband Jacob. With the birth of Zebulun, Leah is celebrating that her husband now loved her and considered her his wife.
13 “Zebulun will reside at the seashore;
Genesis 49:13-15
And he shall be a harbor for ships,
And his flank shall be toward Sidon.
14 “Issachar is a strong donkey,
Lying down between the sheepfolds.
15 When he saw that a resting place was good
And that the land was pleasant,
He bowed his shoulder to carry burdens,
And became a slave at forced labor.
Both brothers’ blessings look primarily economic in nature and for the far future. In the time of Joshua, their lots were landlocked. I wonder, though, about how many hints there are in Issachar’s blessing.
Issachar was named because his mother gave his father her slave maiden. Consider what the Chronicler recorded about the tribe of Issachar centuries later.
Now the sons of Issachar were four: Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron. 2 The sons of Tola were Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Samuel, heads of their fathers’ households. The sons of Tola were valiant warriors in their generations. Their number in the days of David was 22,600. 3 The son of Uzzi was Izrahiah. And the sons of Izrahiah were Michael, Obadiah, Joel, and Isshiah; all five of them were chief men. 4 And with them by their generations according to their fathers’ households were thirty-six thousand troops of the army for war; for they had many wives and sons. 5 Their relatives among all the families of Issachar were valiant warriors, registered by genealogy, eighty-seven thousand in all.
I Chronicles 7:1-5
Another interesting nugget of information about Issachar was recorded by the Chronicler: “[f]rom the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (I Chronicles 12:32)
In the Land of Israel, Issachar practiced biblical polygyny and they also numbered wise men who understood the times. The other hints about two sheepfolds and being slaves at forced labors seems to point at something beyond their future economic and political destinies. I suspect that Issachar’s position as the last of Leah’s sons when he is really the fifth son is a prophetic hint.
After blessing the sons of Leah, Israel next blesses the four sons of his concubines Zilpah and Bilhah. There is an oddity in the ordering here. Dan and Naphtali were the first two sons by a concubine which is Bilhah. Then Zilpah bore Gad and Asher. If we assign these four a number, Dan is 1, Naphtali is 2, Gad is 3 and Asher 4. Israel blessed them in this order: 1, 3, 4, 2. All four of them have unusual blessings. None of them particularly stood out like Reuben, Judah and Joseph did. Let’s look at them in order of blessing, not order of birth.
16 “Dan shall judge his people,
As one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way,
A horned viper in the path,
Genesis 49:16-18
That bites the horse’s heels,
So that its rider falls backward.
18 For Your salvation I wait, Lord.
There is no economic blessing apparent here. Dan is to serve a different purpose as a judge for the people and being a serpent in the way. One teacher suggests that this means that Dan as a serpent makes a track in the ground that people can follow. This would be Dan’s habit of renaming place names with the name of Dan in them (see Joshua 19:47). The horned viper in the path seems to imply several things. One possibility is guerilla warfare. There are other ideas put forth by different teachers. Israel then says to YHVH that he is waiting for “your salvation”. Different ideas have been proffered by various teachers what this means.
The next two sons are the sons of Zilpah: Gad and Asher.
19 “As for Gad, a band of raiders shall attack him,
But he will attack at their heels.
Genesis 49:19
This is a military blessing. He will attack at the heels like Dan. That implies that when struck, Gad strikes back harder and forces the raiders to turn and and run away.
Asher’s blessing is distinctly unwarlike. His blessing is economic in nature.
20 “As for Asher, his food shall be rich,
And he will yield royal delicacies.
Genesis 49:20
Naphtali is the second son of Bilhah the concubine. His is really unusual.
21 “Naphtali is a doe let loose;
He utters beautiful words.
Genesis 49:21
Well, it’s not customary to tell a man that he’s a female deer. That said, Steven Collins interprets this to mean that in the future, the tribe of Naphtali would be known for their beautiful women. He thinks the beautiful words could refer to the Nobel prizes.
Finally, Israel turns to the two sons of Rachel. He had already blessed Joseph by adopting Ephraim and Manasseh as his, thus giving him the double portion. Now, the blessing of Joseph will become the blessing of Manasseh and Ephraim. When reading Joseph’s blessing, keep in mind how Joseph had served as an administrator and resource manager for the Egyptians. His double portion will enable him to provide resources for the rest of his brothers.
22 “Joseph is a fruitful branch,
A fruitful branch by a spring;
Its branches hang over a wall.
23 The archers provoked him,
And shot at him and were hostile toward 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 furthest boundary 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.
Genesis 49:22-26
Joseph is compared to a tree next to water and a wall. Then we see a similar military blessing like Gad’s. Where Gad was a raider, Joseph is compared to an archer. Unlike all of his other brothers except Judah and Dan, Joseph is also intimately associated with the Elohim of Israel: God the Father, the Ruach Kodesh, and Yeshua the Son. This part of the blessing is related to the sign of the cross formed by Israel’s crossed arms when he blessed Manasseh and Ephraim. Then, in the Spirit, Israel tells Joseph that his blessings were three: sky, water and fecundity. Because of the greatly expanding population, Israel’s blessing reached out worldwide to the furthest boundary of the everlasting hills.
Benjamin is the last-born and the last to be blessed.
27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf;
In the morning he devours the prey,
And in the evening he divides the spoils.”
Genesis 49:27
His is another warlike blessing. Benjamin is not recorded as saying anything during the years of the famine. His only notable point is that he was the only son of Rachel that Jacob had with him while Joseph was in Egypt.
Given the warlike nature of several of these blessings, it is perhaps appropriate to note how YHVH regarded them.
19 The portion of Jacob is not like them; for he is the former of all things: and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.
Jeremiah 51:19-20 KJV
20 Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms
Woven into their blessings is the capability to wage warfare, and the economic resources to support that capability. Indeed as Rebekah heard from her father and brother before she left her home to become Isaac’s wife:
And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,
Genesis 24:60
“May you, our sister,
Become thousands of ten thousands,
And may your descendants possess
The gate of those who hate them.”
Indeed, the blessings that Israel gave to his sons would make it possible for the blessing given to Rebekah to come to pass.
Moses recorded that each son was blessed with the appropriate blessing.
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one with the blessing appropriate to him.
Genesis 49:28
Jacob now asked all of his sons to bury him in Canaan. They honored their father’s dying request with great pomp and circumstance.
After returning to Egypt from their father’s funeral, the other brothers (the text does not say if Benjamin was included) again asked for forgiveness which Joseph again granted.
Moses ended the book of Genesis with the information that Joseph saw his descendants to the third generation, and died at 110 years of age.
This concludes the Torah portion. The Haftarah portion for this reading is taken from I Kings 2:1-12. This is the record of David’s requests to his son Solomon as he lay dying on his bed. Instead of blessings for the future, what David did was give a list of unfinished business to his son. As Jacob delayed punishment to the end of his life, so had David delayed punishment and reward until after his death.
As David’s time to die drew near, he commanded his son Solomon, saying, 2 “I am going the way of all the earth. So be strong, and prove yourself a man. 3 Do your duty to the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, 4 so that the Lord may fulfill His promise which He spoke regarding me, saying, ‘If your sons are careful about their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and all their soul, you shall not be deprived of a man to occupy the throne of Israel.’
5 “Now you yourself also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and to Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed; he also shed the blood of war in peace. And he put the blood of war on his belt that was on his waist, and on his sandals that were on his feet. 6 So act as your wisdom dictates, and do not let his gray hair go down to Sheol in peace. 7 However, show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table; for they assisted me when I fled from Absalom your brother. 8 And behold, you have with you Shimei the son of Gera the Benjaminite, of Bahurim; now it was he who cursed me with a painful curse on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord, saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ 9 But now do not leave him unpunished, for you are a wise man; and you will know what to do to him, and you will bring his gray hair down to Sheol with blood.”
10 Then David lay down with his fathers, and he was buried in the city of David.
I Kings 2:1-10
David first charged Absalom to obey YHVH Elohim with all his heart and to keep and guard His Torah so that Solomon would not lack a descendant to sit on the throne. Then David gave Solomon instructions about Joab, the sons of Barzillai and Shimei. Joab was to be executed. The sons of Barzillai to be rewarded by eating daily at the king’s table, and David left it up to Solomon what to do about Shimei but that he would also die. The first and third were to be executed but the middle rewarded.
To conclude this week’s commentary, both the Torah and Haftarah readings show that rewards or punishments can be delayed until the end of the life of the father or king. The father might decide to write someone into the family will or write someone out. Maybe the double portion of the firstborn will be forfeited to someone else more worthy. Those are decisions made by the father, and his children are to see that his last wishes are honored and fulfilled.