“Genesis 49:28-33”

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

“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. Then he charged them and said to them, ‘I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a burial site. There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah—the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.’ When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them.” (verse 28) “This is the first mention of this prophecy as ‘a blessing’; and so it is. To be sure, some have pointed out that Jacob ‘cursed their anger,’ a far different thing. Jacob's bitter denunciation of the sins of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi was exactly the type of blessing they needed; yet for all that, they were not expelled or disinherited among the Twelve Sons, but received their inheritance like all the rest. So indeed the whole prophecy is a blessing.” (James Burton Coffman) Every statement Jacob spoke in regard to each son, whether positive or negative, was “appropriate to him.”

“I am about to be gathered to my people…” (verse 29) “This phrase…is to be distinguished from death itself because the action follows the demise. It is not the same as burial in an ancestral grave, because it is employed of Abraham, Aaron, and Moses, none of whom was buried with his fathers. It is also not identical of interment in general because the report of burial follows this phrase, and the difference between the two is especially blatant in the case of Jacob, who was interred quite a while after being ‘gathered to his kin.’” (Nahum Sarna) “His statement…suggests that some kind of conviction existed within him that the dead were nevertheless, in some sense, still his people. If it was merely an intuition on his part, it was true. God would later speak to Moses as the ‘God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,’ the Saviour himself using this as a proof of immortality.” (James Burton Coffman) “Though death separate us from our children, and our people in this world, it gathers us to our fathers and to our people in the other world.” (Benson Commentary) As the Hebrews writer so succinctly put it, Jacob was gathered “to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” (Hebrews 12:23)

“Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite.” (verse 29) “Here Jacob imposes upon all his sons the obligation to bury him in Canaan, but he does not make them swear to that effect, as he had Joseph (47:29-31), because it was not in their power to implement his wish. Only Joseph had the necessary ready access to the Egyptian authorities (50:4f.)… The precise description of the burial site follows that of 23:17-20.” (Nahum Sarna) “There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah.” (verse 31) “Abraham buried Sarah there himself, and his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, buried him there… we have no other account of the death of Rebekah, and her burial, but here; it is probable she died before Isaac, and that Isaac buried her in this cave; and here Esau and Jacob buried him… and there I buried Leah; of whose death and burial we also read nowhere else but here.” (Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible)

“When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.” (verse 32) “This expression indicates that after Jacob finished blessing his sons, he took his feet up from the floor where he had been sitting on the bed and folded himself up in bed, assuming, in all probability, the fetal position that is naturally characteristic of one in the process of dying. The knees are drawn under the chin, and the body takes on something of the position occupied within the womb of the mother. This is an indication that Jacob died shortly after speaking these words.” (James Burton Coffman) However, if the ancient patriarch was greatly enfeebled and very near the point of departure, the expression may merely be a figurative way of saying that he died.

Please read Genesis 50:1-6 for tomorrow.

Have a blessed day!

-Louie Taylor

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