The Patriarchal Prophecy

Jacob’s Deathbed Blessing as Prophetic History

Well, this morning we look to start chapter 49. We'll next week take the rest of chapter 49 into chapter 50, which will be the very last chapter of Genesis. And we'll, within two weeks' time, conclude our over two years' long time spent in this beginning of the Scriptures.

As we begin chapter 49, we're reminded of where we were last week. Jacob is dying. Jacob is dying and his chief desire, arguably the desire of the past two decades, especially the 17 years after he was reunited with Joseph,.

His long-lost son,.

Has been to testify to the covenantal promises that belonged to him. The very promises that belonged to his father, Isaac, and the promises that belonged to their grandfather. And so, of course, as we begin seeing Jacob's desire, seeing his wish, we were reminded last week of Hebrews 11, that his central passion, his yearning, is to gather his children and to testify to them of his faith in the Lord and all that the Lord had promised, all that the Lord had done on his behalf, all that the Lord had undertaken to do for them.

We saw Jacob blessing Joseph and the way that he blessed Joseph was to adopt Ephraim and Manasseh and pronounce a blessing upon them and bring them into an inheritance in the promised land. But now he has his remaining sons to pass on the blessing.

And as we've seen with Jacob himself, the father's blessing takes on a prophetic character. That was true when blind Isaac had gathered Esau and Jacob before him. Of course, there was some trickery involved, but nonetheless, there was a prophetic character to the blessing of Isaac.

And so with Jacob, there's a prophetic character to the blessing that he pronounces in chapter 49. Notice, beginning in verse one and two, Jacob called his sons and said, gather together that I might tell you what shall befall you in the last days.

Gather together and hear, you sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel, your father. This is very formal language, enigmatic language. You have the emphasis of repetition. Gather together, gather together, even as the sons gather together at the deathbed of Jacob, so they will be gathered together out of the exodus into the promised land.

Gather, listen to Israel, your father. They're given a unity of the name of Israel, their father. And of course, we have this phrase, in the last days. The language of last days, it could be translated in future times.

It's almost a formula when Scripture begins to turn toward predictive prophecy. And so we have this here, and arguably throughout the prophets, and we'll even see it again in Numbers 24. It's the next time Moses uses the phrase, the last days.

And that's very significant, as we'll see later on. So this little phrase, this little token statement, I will tell you what shall befall you in the last days is keying these sons in that they're going to receive a blessing in the form of prophecy.

This is more than poetry. This is more than compliments. This is more than some subjective sense of what they're like, what their attitude and disposition may be, and how that may play out into the future of their tribe.

No, no, this is a prophecy of God that has immediate fulfillment, not only in them and in their tribes, but ultimately beyond them, as we'll see. What we have in verses 1 -28 is the launchpad for all that will unfold in the rest of the Old Testament.

The launchpad, the runway, not only for the history of Israel as it will begin to unfold through the exodus and the conquest and the reception of the land, the building of the kingdom and the loss of that kingdom, but through all of those things, the takeoff in the Christ event, in the coming of the Messiah.

All of that is here contained in verses 1 -28. So we have in seed form the history of Israel in the Old Testament and the prophecy concerning Israel's hope and consolation. The Lord Jesus. We're reminded, as we begin chapter 49, that Scripture is primarily concerned not with biographical detail, not with simply recounting events as they happened chronologically, but Scripture is primarily concerned with the promise, the accomplishment, and the entailment of God's redemption in and through Christ by His Spirit.

That is the goal of Scripture. The great revelation of God's redemption in and through Christ by His Spirit. And all that that entails we see in seed form even here in chapter 49, 1 -28. How do you read a novel?

Those of you that read novels. Well, generally, the very beginning is uniquely important. It's the crisis of every author, right? How do they begin the first page? How do they actually launch into the story?

And then, of course, the next most important thing after you get past the plot dynamics would be how you land, how you finish the story. Well, be reminded, here we are at the very end of Genesis. This is very important.

This is the last major treatment that we have of the theology of Genesis before recounting Joseph's words in chapter 50. So this is very significant, not only for Scripture, but even just for the theology of Genesis.

And we'll draw that out more perhaps next week. And so as we consider the words of Jacob in chapter 49, let's begin with his words to Reuben. And you'll see how it's organized. He speaks primarily to his sons in order of the wives.

First, to the sons of Leah, then to Bilhah and Zilpah, and then finally to the sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin. So beginning with the sons of Leah, with Reuben, Genesis 49, 3 and 4. Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the beginning of my strength, the excellence of dignity, and the excellency of power.

Those are words I might use for Callum next month. We'll see. What a beautiful statement, isn't it? My firstborn son, my might, my dignity, my strength. The firstborn is addressed here. And all of the expectation of a firstborn in terms of Hebrew culture is also expressed here with glowing praise.

This is everything that the firstborn son was meant to be. He uniquely carries on the identity and the lineage and the hope of the Father. Might, strength, dignity, power. All of this was laden with potential in Reuben's life.

All of that was the propensity that Reuben had as the sparkle in Jacob's eye. And yet as he grew older, as he went through those awkward teenage years, even as he became a young man, that began to fade.

That began to turn upside down. And fateful actions still cling to Reuben. And so the prophecy continues. Unstable as water. You shall not excel because you went up to your father's bed and you defiled it.

He went up to my couch. So what began with this tremendous hope is shattered in terms of the prophecy. The one who had might, strength, dignity, and power is unstable like water. Will not excel, will not advance because of the fateful actions he made as a young man.

That word unstable, it could be just as easily translated destructive. Destructive like water. Isn't it amazing? You think of the potential of water, that which literally supports life. Cannot live without water, and yet when you have water in the wrong place or in the wrong quantity, there's nothing more destructive.

Destructive like water. Unstable. It describes Reuben being turbulent, boiling over. Well, if Father's not going to do anything, then I'll take matters into my own hands. And so the Septuagint translates this.

He runs wildly. There's a Targum, so a sort of rabbinic commentary on the passage. They translate this phrase as just running after his own will. And that's what we saw with Reuben. When he climbed up onto his father's bed, a euphemism for when he went into Bilhah, it was an attempted coup d 'etat.

It was a way of saying, I'm actually going to lead the family now. That I'm going to take the place of my father who's passive and off to the side. If he's not willing to lead, I am. So he runs after his own will, boiling, turbulent.

All that had been promissory, might, dignity, strength, turns into corruption. And of course, we remember from Genesis 35 that coup d 'etat. And perhaps that accounts for the way verse four unfolds. Notice everything is in the second person.

You, right?

You are like this.

You will not excel. You are destructive like water because you went up to your father's bed. But then it changes to the third person. He went up to my couch. How do we account for that shift in language?

It's almost as if he's reporting it. Perhaps that was something that the other brothers had not known as plainly. Or maybe they didn't realize that Jacob knew of it. And so it almost comes across as a report.

This is what he did. Jacob is still strongly reacting to something from decades and decades and decades earlier. What a mixed bag we have with Reuben. Glory, on the one hand, and disgrace on the other.

Dignity as the firstborn, and yet, reckless instability, even immorality. And all of that together caused him to lose his firstborn right. What a warning Reuben is for children growing up in a Christian home.

All of the promise surrounded by blessing and testimony. There seems to be so much going for them. But because of recklessness, self-will, immorality, they lose all that privilege. He is forgiven, no doubt.

Forgiven by Joseph. Reconciled to Joseph. Forgiven by Jacob. Reconciled to Jacob. Surely we could say, forgiven by God. He is blessed here. He does receive an allotment in the land. There is a tribe of Reuben.

But even though he's forgiven, the consequences of his actions are he loses his firstborn privilege. Spurgeon says, a man may have many great opportunities and yet lose them all. Uncontrolled passion may make a man very little who otherwise would have been very great.

Simeon and Levi Scattered in Israel

Simeon and Levi. Simeon and Levi are interestingly paired together in v. 5 -7. And of course, as Jacob will prophesy, they'll be divided in among themselves, scattered among their inheritance. And so the way that Joseph had been doubled through Ephraim and Manasseh taking a share of the inheritance, here Simeon and Levi are merged together.

They're interdispersed. And so that accounts for how we retain the 12 tribes of Israel prophetically. Simeon and Levi, v. 5. Simeon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.

Let not my soul enter their council. Let not my honor be united to their assembly. For in their anger they slew a man. In their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger. It is fierce. Cursed be their wrath for it is cruel.

I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. They've been instruments of cruelty according to the words of Jacob. The term here, it's really interesting. When you get into prophecy or poetry, Hebrew language has a capability that's perhaps unique to Semitic languages compared to other languages, including English or any of the Romance languages.

Hebrew is a continental language. And so we only know how to pronounce it because scribes later on in history known as the Masoretes, they took time to actually reproduce vowel pointings so that the right word could be identified and the right pronunciation could be followed.

And that's based on a number of things including context and so forth. But they preserved the location of those consonants. So they put dots in the middle or underneath as a way of what we call pointing the Hebrew.

Now when you get into poetry, often you'll find words that are used very rarely. And that may be because it's trying to produce a certain image. It may be because it's trying to fit a certain meter. We experience this a little bit with what we sang earlier this morning.

A well-tuned heart. And some of us got thrown off with that line. Well, there was a hyphen, a well-tuned heart. Tuned is not part of our English, no, but it's fitting the meter. And that's how poetry can often work.

And so here we have prophecy, very poetic use of words, very evocative, figurative, and often rare words will be used that can have a number of connotations. Translators will make a decision. And we have a translation here.

Instruments of cruelty. But this word is so rich. Instruments. Elsewhere it's used to speak of counsel. It can be translated as a noun pointed in a certain way to speak of knives or even swords. And then interestingly enough, the same word is a compound of wedding feasts.

So the idea of a wedding feast or a wedding gathering. So notice this same word that's being used and translated as instruments of cruelty has the connotation or the possibility of counsel, knife, sword, wedding feast.

Do you see what Jacob is doing? All of this is woven together in the details of what Simeon and Levi had done back in Genesis 34 when they had slaughtered the Shechemites. You remember, they took counsel with Shechem because of what Shechem did to Dinah.

And of course, Shechem sought a wedding and the feast that would result from a wedding. And so he submitted to the knives of circumcision but was killed by the sword. All of that is contained in this little phrase, instruments of cruelty.

So fascinating. Jacob says they're violent men.

Fierce men.

Their anger exploded in such a way that they didn't just slay a man, notice this language, in their self-will they hamstrung an ox. And I don't think that's describing not only did they kill the men but they also killed all the cattle.

Likely that's not a detail recorded in Genesis 34. That's probably not how they would have thought of it. That would have been plunder to them, valuable plunder. I think Jacob's point is in their anger and in their rage, in their aggression and needless violence, they destroy things just for the joy of destruction.

They look at an ox that is simply minding its own business and they go and they cut open the hamstring so that it suffers and faces an excruciating death. That's what their anger is like. Reckless, destructive.

It triumphs in the misery of others. They're violent men.

And so he says,.

Let not my soul enter their council. Let not my glory be united to their assembly. And he pronounces a curse upon their anger. Cursed be their anger. Notice how strongly Jacob is reacting against his sons, Simeon and Levi.

It's a reminder of how believers are meant to react against anger. How seriously do we take anger? What does Ephesians 4 .32 say about anger? Put it all away. Put all malice and wrath and anger away from you.

It's destructive, recklessly destructive. And Jacob says as a result of this, they'll be divided, scattered among the land. It's a prediction that will shortly come true in Israel. We remember, of course, that according to Numbers 26, the tribe of Simeon was very weak.

They came out as one of the largest tribes during the Exodus, but by the time we get to Numbers 26, they're one of the smallest. Their numbers were so far dwindled that Joshua would not give them an allotment of land.

Rather, they were scattered and inter-dispersed within Judah. So Simeon was scattered in the midst of the southern region of the land. Levi himself, as a tribe, was scattered throughout the land as well.

But here, there's actually a note of encouragement, of even hope, because their scattering comes off the heels of their faithfulness. It was the sons of Levi who would not worship the golden calf of Exodus 32.

And so Joshua appointed them to be in the cities, 48 cities throughout the land, because the Lord was their inheritance. Rather than the inheritance of the land, the Lord would be their inheritance. Now, taking a step back, so far we've looked at three sons.

Notice that all of these sons have been forgiven. All of these sons have been reconciled to Joseph. All of these sons have been reconciled to Jacob. Truly, they are blessed. Truly, they at least, in one shape or another, receive some place in the land.

And I wonder if we're reminded of Psalm 99 from our days at Manadnock. You were to them God who forgives, though you took vengeance on their deeds. There's a consequence to their action. Now Judah is coming up next.

Judah's just heard the prophecy on Reuben, on Simeon, and on Levi. And you can imagine he's thinking, oh, I'm really in for it now. If all their sins of all their failures are in plain view and their consequences are in plain view, what am I in store for?

We remember Genesis 38 and how he treated Tamar. We remember his implication in the plot to kill Joseph. So Judah must have been bracing for impact. Maybe it'll start out well just like Reuben's prophecy and then dad's really gonna let me have it and who knows if I'm gonna have anything in the land at all.

Judah, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and the Scepter

Verse eight. Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's children shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp, another word for cub.

From the prey, my son, you've gone up. He bows down. He lies down as a lion. And as a lion, who shall rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

And to him shall be the obedience of the people. Binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk.

That's the prophecy given to Judah. Judah was bracing for the impact of a curse that never comes. Rather than being disturbed by the blessing, Judah is truly blessed. Rather than having his sinful actions put on display, Jacob bestows the greatest honor imaginable to Judah, the lineage of the promised seed.

It's not for nothing that in verse 10, there's a capital H for the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes and to him. That's a capital H. We'll get into that.

The lineage of the promised seed. The blessing begins with a word play on Judah's name. Judah's name, pointed as a verb, means to praise. And Jacob says, your brothers will praise you. Judah is praiseworthy, of course.

We saw the transformation in his life after chapter 38. Tamar's ruse had shown Judah just what kind of man he was. She is righteous, not I. And ever since then, we saw this repentance in his life that was marked by self-sacrifice.

Father, let anything that happens be upon my head, my hope, my inheritance, my lineage. Let me be cut off from before your sight if anything's happening to Benjamin. And now he threw himself down in the place of Benjamin, of how he sought reconciliation with Joseph in such a way that Joseph himself was startled at what kind of man Judah had become.

And in light of that, he receives this great honor. He will be praised just as Joseph was prophesied to be praised. Your brothers will bow down to you, it is said to Judah. Well, that was the dream that had been given to Joseph.

Your brothers will bow down to you. So Joseph, as the type of Jesus, is here also, as it were, brought into this lineage of Judah. How is it that the brothers will bow down to Judah? Because of the one that comes from the tribe of Judah.

All of this speaks toward the coming of the Messiah. Judah is compared to a lion's cub, a striking image that in due time, this cub will grow to maturity into the power of a fierce and mighty lion. This is royal imagery.

More importantly, it's messianic imagery. I'm, one of the things I love about, where Elsie is at right now in homeschooling is her fascination of animals and creation in general. It's wonderful when kids are just so amazed at what they can learn about the vibrancy and complexity of God's work.

And one of the things that she's particularly drawn to is lions, and so we had an opportunity several weeks ago to watch a documentary following a pride in the plains of the Serengeti. And we were both, I think Elsie and I together, were kind of floored at the power of a full-grown male lion.

It's one thing to see the cubs ducking in between the legs of the lionesses, but when the male lion comes around, they seem somewhat lazy, but when they're in action, it's a sight to behold. And of course, they don't do the majority of the hunting.

They're more interested in territory, which speaking of the kingly imagery of a lion is very significant. But there was this documentary, and of course there was this invasion of the territory. And this male lion had crossed over this crocodile-infested river and made it into this other territory.

And the male lion began to do his roar, his low, guttural groan. And he was an older lion. He had held his pride for some time, but here comes this new lion in the height of his strength and his energy, completely undisturbed by the power of that grout coming at him.

Rather than turning back, he hears it and he rushes toward it. And the videography was amazing as it showed these powerful claws moving closer and closer to this fight. And even when that older male lion saw this powerful mane rushing through the tall grasses, it knew it was time to get out of dodge.

The power of a lion. Right now in Judah's tribe, it's just a cub. It's just a cub. But in the last days, this cub will become the lion of the tribe of Judah. Unmitigated power, unmitigated strength. The ferocity of his judgment.

This is the royal imagery of the lion. And with verse 10, we're taken to the very height of the messianic promise. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people.

I cannot emphasize to you enough how important Genesis 49 verse 10 is to all that follows in the history of Scripture. In verse 10, we see the fullness of the promise of the coming Messiah. The scepter will not depart from the tribe of Judah.

A few years ago, some of us went to a trip in England, and we went to the Tower of London. We made our ways through the Tower of London and through these massive two-foot-thick walled vaults. And one of them, the monarch of the day, was Elizabeth II, and there was the scepter that she held at her monarchical inauguration.

The symbol of power. The symbol of royal dominion over the realm of Great Britain. The scepter, this symbol of imperial power, the symbol of kingship, will not depart from Judah, nor will a lawgiver depart from between his feet.

The idea, likely a euphemism, from between his feet is a euphemistic way of saying from his seed, from his descendants. So the leading position as the tribe, the promised kingly tribe, they will have that status until Shiloh comes.

So this kingly promise will be attached to Judah until Shiloh comes. There's a promissory status to the tribe of Judah. Now this word Shiloh, it's the bane of many an interpreter's existence because there's about eight different ways to understand it.

And likely most of those ways are intentional. As we said, language is meant to be evocative in prophecy or poetry. It's meant to have many connotations to it. And so this could be pointed in reference to Shelah, that was the son of Jacob that Tamar was to marry, but he kept withholding.

And so the idea is until Shelah comes, and the idea there is it will never happen. You remember, Jacob was withholding his son. Oh, just keep waiting, just wait until he's older, just wait, and it was never gonna happen.

And so it's almost a roundabout way of saying the scepter will never depart, it never depart. Until Shelah comes, it will never depart. Another way to look at it is simply look at the word Shiloh itself.

It could be translated as the one who makes peace, the one who gives rest, rest maker, peace giver. And then of course, it could also be translated if we point it as a verb, the one, making it into a relative clause, the one to whom it belongs.

And so we would translate it this way, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until the one to whom it belongs comes. All of these are valid options, all of these are debated.

Now whether we understand Shiloh as the rest giver, the peacemaker, or the one to whom the scepter belongs, we recognize that this is a Messianic prophecy and the significant thing is, it was held to be a Messianic prophecy from the very beginning.

And so the earliest translations we have translate this as a Messianic promise. We have it recorded in a particular targum called Onkelos, and this is the translation. Until Messiah comes, who the kingdom belongs to, and all of the nations will obey.

So they're connecting this to the kingly Messiah. We know, for instance, that the higher critical scholars of the day would say, this is just Christian history being glazed over Jewish interpretations of the past.

They like to claim the Jews saw the Messiah in chapter 49, but these are all medieval sources, likely influenced by Christianity. And then, in 1947, they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves of Qumran.

Access now to the first century and maybe 100 to 150 years before the first century. One particular scroll, they categorized them by caves. The first cave at Qumran, one cue of pressure, an interpretation of blessing, has Genesis 49 .10 as a Messianic promise.

And so we know that from the very beginning, Jews were looking to this passage to say, the Messiah will come from the tribe of Judah. We're looking for the one to whom the scepter belongs. We're looking for Shiloh, the peace giver, the rest maker.

Franz Delitzsch, a very important commentator, says the entire Jewish people and all of the Christian church are in perfect agreement that Jacob here was prophesying about the coming of the Messiah. To him shall be the obedience of the people.

Another evocative term, obedience, can and sometimes is translated as the gathering of the people. To him shall be the gathering of the people. To him shall be the obedience of the people. When the Messianic mystery is unfolded, Jesus says, when I am raised, I will draw all men to myself.

And they come to him in what? The obedience of faith. In that day, the prophecy of Isaiah 11 promised, there shall be a root from Jesse who stands as a banner to the people. All of the Gentiles shall seek him and his resting place, his Shiloh place, shall be glorious.

Now the last part of this prophecy takes us to this imagery of agricultural abundance. Immediately speaking to Judah's prominent position.

In the land.

Binding his donkey to the vine, his donkey's colt to the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine. Think through the imagery here. I don't know much about raising a donkey, but if you were living on a subsistence level of agriculture hoping to grow enough to make it through the season, you wouldn't tie your donkey to a vine because what's the donkey going to do when he's tied to the vine?

He's going to eat it in about an hour and you'll never have fruit from that vine again. But the abundance is so rich. The blessing is so pronounced that go ahead and tie your donkeys to the vines.

Let them eat the vines.

You don't even need water for your clothes.

Just wash them in wine.

We've got wine, we've got vines on demand everywhere. We don't know what to do with it. We've got it coming out of every corner of our dwelling place. So they're washing their clothes in the blood of grapes, washing their garments in wine.

And the milk is flowing, enigmatic of the promise of the land. The land flowing with milk, meaning cattle in abundance. His eyes are darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk, dark crimson, bright white.

You can see where early Christian interpreters took this. With view to the Messianic prophecy, first of all, they saw the significance of the donkey's cult. It was Zechariah 9 where the donkey's cult had something to do with the arrival of the Messiah.

And Matthew 21 picks up just on that. Riding on a donkey's cult while they cried out, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David. And then of course, we saw this imagery of the donkey throughout the prophets as an image of the Gentile nations, wild like a donkey, unwilling to come to the yoke of the Lord.

And so the idea here is the Gentiles being tied to the true vine. The donkey's cult being tethered to the vine who is the Lord. And then of course, this imagery of red and white, of white garments, of crimson red.

I love what John Gill, he gives us a few different ways.

To understand this.

He says, first of all, we see the great quantity of spiritual blessings that flow from the love of God and come to us by Christ. And these are comparable to wine and milk, to a feast of all of the fat things.

This can be applied to Christ. It can be applied to the garment of His human nature, which through His suffering and death was like a garment dipped in blood. It became red, His apparel. Or to His church and people, which cleave to Him as a garment, whose garments are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.

Again, this is all prophecy. Well, let's put a bookmark on Judah. We'll come back to him and keep moving through the remaining sons. Zebulun, verse 13. Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea. He shall become a haven for ships.

His border shall adjoin Sidon. So Zebulun's prophecy is about where they will dwell in the allocation of the land. It seems like they're dwelling right on the seashore, but what we know as we start reading through Joshua 19 is they're on a place that's not quite at the shore.

They don't have any ports. Yet they're close enough to the coast that they're made rich by all of the sea commerce of the Mediterranean. Then of course, we move on to Issachar in verses 14 and 15. Issachar is a strong donkey lying down between two burdens.

He saw that rest was good and the land was pleasant. He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden and became a band of slaves. So Issachar is likened to this animal, and you'll notice this animal imagery in many of the blessings.

We'll see this again and again. We've already seen it with the lion we have here,.

The donkey.

We'll see it further. The blessing of Issachar shows them to be strong like a donkey, very capable like a donkey, but also stubborn and indifferent like a donkey. Their main aim, according to this prophecy, seems to find a land that was pleasant, much like Lot sought the well-watered plains of the Dead Sea.

Lying down between two burdens, he saw that rest was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bowed his shoulder to bear a burden. He's willing to take on the burden for the sake of what seems to be comfortable or luxurious for the moment, but that comes with a high price.

It came with a high price for Lot. It comes with a high price for the tribe of Issachar. Issachar as a tribe ends up being enslaved by the Canaanites. They wanted a land of plenty, they wanted rest, and they had to wear a burden in order to receive it.

The same imagery that's used of the Israelites being slaves in Egypt is used of the Issacharites. And so in contrast to Judah, who subdues his enemy like a lion, Issachar is enslaved. That which we do not master becomes our master.

That would perhaps be a spiritual response. Think through your sanctification. That which you have not mastered by God's grace in your walk likely is a master over you.

Dan, Gad, Asher, and Naphtali

Dan.

Genesis 49, 16 -18. Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse's heel so that its rider will fall backward.

I have waited for your salvation, O Lord. Wordplay here. Dan means to judge as a Hebrew verb, and Dan is going to judge his people. In what way does Dan judge his people? Well, perhaps the most famous hero of the tribe of Dan was the judge, Samson.

And Samson judged the people. And Samson in many ways was the viper along the path. Though Dan was a very, very small tribe, their power was legendary. They were the bane of the Philistines because of this judge, Samson.

So most likely Judges 18 is in view in the immediate terms of this prophecy. But this tribe that bites the horse's heels and causes the rider to fall can also be seen in somewhat negative terms. In Judges 18 we have this image of the Danites retrieving an idol that the false prophet Micah had fashioned and they carry that legacy into Israel.

So they're marked early on in the history of Israel with idolatry. And perhaps that is why Jacob breaks out in this spontaneous prayer. He's saying this is what Dan is and what Dan will be and then he breaks out into prayer.

I have waited for your salvation, O Lord. That's probably not the best translation because what happens when you're dealing with predictive prophecy is we have a shift in the syntax. And so things that would normally be translated.

As perfect verbs,.

Things like I have waited, become future tense. They have future significance.

I will wait.

A better translation would be I will wait for your salvation, O Lord. And that's the plea that Jacob gives. So at first glance, it seems like where is this coming from? Is this just some invocation?

Why here?

Why now? Why does Jacob break out into this prayer? Most likely it's because he sees the kind of trouble that Dan will have interfering with idolatry even after the great deliverance of Samson, their great hero.

And so they go from the triumph right down into the muck of idolatry. And perhaps seeing that from afar, Jacob prays, I will wait for your salvation, Lord. I know You will be the one to deliver Israel.