Oracles from Israel

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We are going to read only a portion of the chapter.
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I know we have for a while in our study of Genesis been going Through long sections chapter by chapter, but as we get close here to the end.
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I'm going to have to Restrain trying to get to the whole chapter because there are certain portions that are going to require an entire sermon So today we're going to be breaking up the text a bit Reading verses 1 to 7 then we're going to skip Verses 8 to 12.
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We're going to go to 13 through 28 and hopefully it'll make sense when we get into the study Why that is? the title of today's message is oracles from Israel and When people hear the word Israel today, they often think of a place on the map a small section of Middle Eastern land, which has been a point of controversy for centuries Others hear the word Israel and they think of the people the Jewish people Often in the New Testament when the word Israel is mentioned It's speaking of the people such as when it says all Israel will be saved or not all Israel is true Israel we hear that and we know it's talking about the people of Israel Still others when they hear the word Israel they think of the twelve tribes of Israel those people groups which came up out of Egypt during the exodus and conquered the promised land but it's important that we remember when we Say the word Israel when we think of the word Israel first and foremost Israel was a man.
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He was the third of the great patriarchs Abraham his grandfather was called out of Mesopotamia to go to Canaan and That that land would be a promise to him as well as many descendants he had a son his name was Isaac and Isaac dwelt in the land of Canaan.
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He was buried there with his father Abraham and Isaac had a son His name was Jacob Jacob began his life in Canaan.
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He spent a long time there, but then he was rushed away because of his Injury to his brother who he had stolen his birthright and So he was ushered away to his uncle's property his uncle Laban He lived there for many years and during that time he had four different women give him children The wife that he loved Rachel gave him two children the wife that he did not love as much I would say is Like Leah she gave him six children and then both of those women had Handmaidens Zopa and Bilhah and they each gave him two children.
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So there is the twelve descendants or the twelve sons of Jacob and Then Jacob would later wrestle with the angel of the Lord and After that, he would be ever known not just as Jacob But as Israel which means the one who wrestles with God There's an interesting parallel if you think about the fact that there are twelve tribes twelve sons of Israel Because there were also twelve apostles Jesus chose twelve men to follow him during the three-year ministry of his life on this earth and it's interesting too if you look at the comparison between the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles there are there are apostles that we know a lot about We know a lot about Peter.
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He was kind of a man who was known to speak Sometimes impetuously and loudly and above the rest.
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I like Peter we we tend to relate But there was also James and John the sons of thunder there was Judas Iscariot the one who betrayed Jesus But then there are those apostles that we know very little about men like Thaddeus and the others We we know them though We know they were there But we we are only told their names really in the lists of the Apostles and very little else is told about them Well, the same is true of the twelve tribes We know a lot about Joseph.
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We've read about his life.
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We know a lot about Judah We've read about his life and we know a lot about Simeon Levi and we know a lot about Reuben but we know very little about Gad or Asher or naphtali and What's interesting is we're going to come today to the point where? Israel Jacob is gathering his sons together to pronounce upon them a final word of blessing a Final word.
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It's actually an oracle of prophecy.
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That's why I entitled the sermon the oracles of Israel It's an oracle of prophecy over his sons and when he gathers them all together Some of them get long oracles Some of them are blessings like in the case of Judah and Joseph.
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Some of them are what we're going to call anti blessings Which are also known as curses on Reuben and Simeon and Levi and some of them just get one sentence So we see that in this there's some will get a lot of attention some will get less of attention But I hope to show you by the end of today Why the one who is most prominent is not the one that we would think You see we would think that Joseph is the one who is most prominent But actually within the narrative it is actually Judah who is the most prominent Joseph we will see his story has basically come to an end and what? Israel says about Joseph are the things that have passed God has watched over you.
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God has taken care of you archers shot their arrows at you and yet They were not able to hurt you.
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You know, this is his past.
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But when he talks of Judah, he talks of his future There will come from you one That will be the leader of all and all praise will be to him the lion of the tribe of Judah Now that's the next message.
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I can't do that today and do justice to the other brothers So today we're going to look at all of the brothers except Judah and Then the next time we come together to this text we will look at Judah so with that in mind, let us stand together and let us read We're going to read again verses 1 to 7 then we're going to skip to verses 13 to 28 Then Jacob called his sons and said gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come Assemble and listen old sons of Jacob listen to Israel your father Reuben you are my firstborn my might and the firstfruits of my strength preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power Unstable as water You shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed.
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Then you defiled it.
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He went up to my couch Samuel and Levi are brothers weapons of violence are their swords Let my soul not come into their counsel or my glory be not joined to their company for in their anger They killed men and in their willfulness.
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They hamstrung oxen Cursed to be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel.
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I Will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel and now verse 13 Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea He shall become a haven for ships and his border shall be at Sidon Issachar is a strong donkey crouching between the sheep folds He saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant So he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel Dan shall be a serpent in the way a viper by the path that bites the horse's heels so that the rider falls backwards.
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I Wait for your salvation.
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Oh Lord Raiders shall raid gad, but he shall raid at their heels Asher's food shall be rich and he shall yield royal delicacies Naphtali is a dough let loose that bears beautiful fonds.
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Joseph is a fruitful bow a Fruitful bow by a spring his branches run over the wall The archers bitterly attacked him shot at him and harassed him severely yet.
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His bow remained unmoved His arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob from there is the shepherd the stone of Israel By the God of your father who will help you by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that crouches beneath blessings of the breasts of the womb and of the womb The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents up to the bounties of the everlasting hills May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers Benjamin is a ravenous wolf in the morning devouring prey and at the evening dividing the spoil All these are the twelve tribes of Israel This is what their father said to them as he blessed them blessing each With the blessing suitable to him our father and our God.
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I come to you in Jesus name I pray Oh God that you would keep me from error as I preach And I pray Oh God that you would open the hearts of your people to hear the truth that your Holy Spirit would be the teacher That I would simply be the mouthpiece and that I would increase in Christ nor that I would decrease in Christ would increase in this place and Lord that you would be all In all and that we would see within this text Lord the importance of understanding What it is to live our lives in light of the glory of God We pray this in Jesus name and for his sake Amen Israel is on his deathbed He knows that the end is near So he gathers his sons around him to pronounce an Oracle of prophecy upon each of the twelve sons Now I want to make note right away.
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This is unlike his father Isaac You remember his father Isaac had two sons Jacob and Esau and his father Isaac had preferred Esau to Jacob and He was going to bless him in a very similar way But he was going to do it in the privacy of his tent where no one else could see he was going to do it Out of the out of the sight of the community But now his son Jacob The one who did receive the blessing albeit He received it by a nefarious route dressing up like his brother and fooling his aged and blind father Yet he did receive the blessing and now he sits among his sons not Hiding the blessing not not concealing it But he calls them all together so that all may hear of the blessing and the anti blessing That he is going to pronounce Upon them As I said, this is more than just My sons be blessed be filled behold.
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No, this is oracles of prophecy.
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This is God speaking his word through his patriarch and each one is going to receive an individual prophetic utterance and That this utterance will apply not only to them but to their children to their offsprings in Fact in fact, this is interesting if you want to make note of this This is the first time we read the phrase the twelve tribes of Israel So the focus of this prophecy is not just these men it is the descendants of these men It's not just those who are under the sound of his voice But is those who are who are now in their loins as the biblical language is their progeny is still in their loins But yet they are going to come and they are going to become Nations, they're going to become tribes and in these tribes.
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There will be blessings and there will be anti blessings now Part of me wanted to just do an 11-point sermon.
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Here's this one.
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This is what it means This is this and we're going to sort of do that, but I felt like an 11-point sermon would be a lot So what I did instead was I gave you an outline and I'll put it on the on the TV.
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This is the outline of the oracles of Israel now Numbers five and six are supposed to be yellow too.
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That's not a mistake The the the way that it is is what we actually see in this section is we see the call to gather and Then there are the oracles to the sons of Leah There are the oracles to the sons of Bilhah and in the midst there is a prayer of deliverance That's verse 18, which sort of comes out of nowhere It's this one singular moment where he sort of stops and prays for deliverance and what's interesting we're gonna find out It's right after he talks about the tribe of Dan and so we're gonna see how that might sort of affect why he's stopping to pray at that moment and then he's going to talk About the the oracles of Zilpah and then finally the oracles to the sons of Rachel so this is the outline of of what we're going to look at and What I want to point you to before we even break down the text is There is a there is there is mention of sins in this He's going to mention the sin of Reuben who went up and took his father's concubine He's going to mention the viciousness of Simeon and Levi who not only killed men But they were vicious in how they killed them using the very covenant sign of God as a way to weaken the men to bring About their deaths and the deaths of all the men in Shechem He's going to mention these things but one thing he's not going to mention and this really to me is surprising is he's not going to mention as a Judgment on the eleven sons not counting Joseph.
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He's not going to mention their treatment of Joseph Now he does in his in his oracle to Joseph He does mention archers firing arrows and and Joseph standing against that I think that could have a reference to the brothers but at no time does he bring a judgment against his sons for what they did to his favorite son and I and I thought about that.
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I said why why is Jacob not standing up and saying it all eleven of you are Wretched vile liars.
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You brought me a Jacket covered in blood that you knew belonged to your brother.
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You fooled me into thinking he was dead for 22 years But He doesn't do that And I had to think about why I sort of in my mind why well first answer is God is the one speaking This is an oracle So I'm not going to question my Lord as to why something is or something is not there but there is also something else to consider and that is Joseph has forgiven his brothers for their sins We see this forgiveness expressed in chapter 50 when we get there his brothers will actually I think make up a story We're gonna talk about this when they get there because they go and they say dad said after he dies You're not allowed to you're not allowed to hurt us.
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I don't think dad ever said that I think that's me I think that I think they're trying to cover their bets Trying to cover their their lives and Joseph says don't you understand? You're already forgiven Don't you understand? I'm not holding it.
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I brought you here to protect you not to punish you Right, so they've already been forgiven of that Other commentators have said well, maybe Jacob just didn't know what they had done to Joseph.
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I don't know I don't know if I can accept that and my reasoning is twofold one I do believe he makes reference to it when he speaks of Joseph's life and the archers and arrows and talk about that in a minute but also There seems to be an understanding That Joseph didn't get here by accident He got here through the providence of God God has taken Joseph from being and the house of Israel to the house of Pharaoh by the means of his brothers And while what they did for evil God intended for good And I don't think Joseph or rather Israel is unaware of that Maybe he doesn't know all the sordid details Maybe he doesn't know how much Jacob or Joseph screamed when his brothers were putting him in the in the caravan of traitors We read about that in other places where Joseph cried out for Them not to be so evil to him.
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Maybe he doesn't know about all that But he certainly knows enough so another thing I want to mention before we get to the text is that and I mentioned this earlier the the These oracles are not evenly distributed the vast amount of space is given to to Judah and Joseph and in those two We have the looking back at the providence of God That's Joseph and we have the looking forward to the providence of God in the life of Judah and as we said next time we'll talk about the fact that David comes from Judah and Then the greater David Jesus Christ comes from Judah But they get the lion's share the rest of the men only get a few sentences and the structure is interesting there is a Chiastic structure which I'm not going to get into but the chiasm is is when it's very common in Hebrew literature And there's a way that things are outlined where the thing that happens in the center is sort of the thing that's it's building to and that builds out from that thing and What we see is sort of a chiastic structure because he doesn't put the boys in birth order He puts them in order of the mothers But even in the order of the mothers he he he inverts two of the brothers And he doesn't put them all in order so there seems to be a structure here of purpose as to why he's doing it the Way that he's doing it.
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None of this is by mistake.
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None of this is by accident.
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This is not a haphazard Smattering of blessing.
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This is a thought-out oracle that has been given by Almighty God and In the very center of it.
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There's that blessing of deliverance that prayer of deliverance That I think is the centerpiece that's why I have it in red on the screen There's that point in the middle where it all sort of comes together All right, so let's begin in verse 3 looking at the oracles of the sons of Leah Verse 3 to 4 talk about Reuben.
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He says Reuben you are my firstborn my might the first fruits of my strength preeminent in dignity and Preeminent in power now you got to think at this point Reuben's feeling pretty good.
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I mean at this point All right, guys Here it comes the double portion Remember the firstborn would receive the double portion of the blessing and he's just heard you are my strength You are my might which is actually a very common thing a very common Colloquial phrase that is used in the Near East to respond to refer to the firstborn son of a man Because it is the firstborn son is the picture of his virility His ability to spawn children is shown in the firstborn son.
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That's why he says you are my strength you are my first fruits my might you showed forth my ability to have children and In that sense your preeminent in dignity and in power Because you showed forth my strength in the ability to have children but Now the text doesn't say but But there is a sense in which the but should be included Because right after he gives this wonderful expression of how great it is to have a firstborn son and how the firstborn son shows forth his strength and shows forth his the first fruits of his ability to bear children and he's preeminent in dignity and power but Nobody wants to hear a but after that it's like somebody you're dating saying I really like you but He's like just stop.
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Whatever's coming next.
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I don't want to hear it Verse four But you are as unstable as water Now I can't do this for every one of these but I was thinking about this on my way in I Listened to the text of Scripture a lot when I'm driving, especially on Sunday morning I listened to the text that I'm going to be preaching on and I sort of let it mull in my mind and I heard This phrase unstable as water and I began to think about how how much this would have been understood to be unstable We we know that a solid ground provides us purchase and it provides us balance And that's where we have our our ability to feel confident and where we stand But if if you've ever stood on a surfboard or if you've ever stood on a dock that was a floating dock Then you understand the idea that he's saying here.
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You're you're you're unbalanced You're you're not a man who has the capacity to be the leader We know this Because Reuben showed himself All throughout the narrative as one who lacked the capacity to lead He didn't want his brothers to hurt Joseph.
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He tried to get them to stop.
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Did they listen to him? No Was he able to save Joseph from being sold into slavery? No He lacked the capacity to lead his word did not fall upon the ears of his brother with any Authority Later when he tried to bring Benjamin back to his father His father would not listen to him even when he offered up his own sons as a Sacrifice his father would not accept it because this man does not have the capacity to lead this man's not the leader and Proof is found in what he says next He says you shall not have preeminence because you went up to your father's bed Now this is back in chapter 35 Reuben took his father's concubine and he slept with her Why did he sleep with her? Some people attribute it to an expression of his lustful desires as a man and Maybe there was some lust involved.
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The woman was old enough to be his mother But she may have still been attractive So the idea that there was no lust involved is probably not true But it wasn't all about lust what it was was in the ancient Near East when a man took his father's concubine That was a man usurping his father's position and taking his father's authority We actually see this later in the life of David Where one of his sons is encouraged to take his concubine? Because in doing so you'll usurp his authority So Reuben is seeking his father's authority in a misplaced attempt to try to be the man in charge and Instead he brings upon himself The judgment of his father if you go back to chapter 35, you'll notice Jacob doesn't say anything All it says is that Reuben slept with his father's concubine but now years decades later When his father's about to draw his final breath He looks upon his son and said you defiled my bed The ESV translates it that he changes his attention from Reuben to the rest that he says this He says you defiled it He went up to my couch as if to look at the whole audience and say look what he did So the sins of Reuben Are Remembered and just from a historical perspective keep this in mind There will never be a prophet or a priest Or even a judge Who will come from the line of Reuben? And all of the history of Israel Verse 5 we get to Simeon and Levi These are brothers now.
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That's an interesting phrase because they're all brothers But these guys are These guys are Peas in a pod if you would when he says Simeon and Levi and by the way, he connects their anti-blessing together Simeon and Levi are brothers two peas in a pod weapons of violence are their swords Now let me say this real quick, I don't have time to break this out I am going to talk about this the next time I preach in Proverbs though if I if I get a chance to preach Chapter 13 things are kind of up in the air right now with my surgery So, I don't know if that's going to happen But if I do there is a thing there is such a thing as benevolent violence men who who who do? violence on behalf of saving other people loving other people there there is such a thing as benevolent violence and the Bible talks about that and I've talked about before I hope that one day maybe even write a book about it because I think it's an important thing to understand There is benevolent violence, but these men are not Benevolently violent in the sense that they're saving people or redeeming people These men are violent for violence sake He says let not my soul come into their counsel.
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Oh my glory be not joined to their company for in their anger They killed men notice.
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It wasn't injustice It was an anger that they killed men in their willfulness.
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They hamstrung oxen now Hamstringing oxen is a reference to cutting the oxen's leg tendon For the purpose of being unnecessarily brutal So not only did they enact violence against men.
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They were also harmers of animals for no reason and He says in verse 7 cursed be their anger for it is fierce and their wrath for it is cruel I will divide them in Jacob and I will scatter them in Israel Now I want to make mention of that last phrase because Simeon's descendants and Levi's descendants do end up in a sense being scattered and this is why I see these is not just prophecies about these men But about their descendants what we see with Simeon is that his descendants are Scattered throughout the territory of Judah and that's in Joshua chapter 19 and Levi's descendants are appointed 48 towns and pasture lands among the 12 tribes Including Ephraim and Manasseh, so they're not there.
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They're scattered abroad and This is a picture of the curse the judgment That is part now you might say but wait a minute Levi becomes the priesthood.
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There's redemption to God is not leaving them unredeemed.
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He's not going to hold back all blessings but the point is there's a there's a there is a result or a consequence for what they have done as They struck men in their death.
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God will strike and scatter their descendants and that's the picture here Because of their and there and it was vicious You guys remember when I preached that they told the men of Shechem if you circumcise yourself, we will allow you to marry our women and What on the third day when they were reeling from the pain of circumcision Amen They they went through the town with sword and bow and destroyed every man leaving children orphaned women widowed And they took for the spoils all that was left It's vicious action Even if it was done in recompense for a just sin in the sense that it's it's just to bring recompense on sin and Their sister had been sinned against But their actions were unnecessarily vicious And God is bringing that to account now As I said We're not going to talk about Judah, but he would be next and here's the point None of the rest of the brothers are going to receive such a heavy I don't want to say condemnation But I will say a heavy curse or heavy anti blessing as the first three and you say why is that? Why is why did the first three? Receive these curses and then you have Judah who received this tremendous blessing and by the way Judah was not a great man either He did some pretty rotten stuff in chapter 38 But God redeemed him brought him to the end of himself and had him offer himself up as a substitute So there is a blessing and redemption in Judah's life, which we'll see the next time we come together.
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But the point is After Judah is mentioned.
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He's going to begin going through the brothers relatively quickly and and things will seem to change He's no longer going to be speaking in terms of anti blessing and curse, but now he's going to Run through the brothers and begin to describe them each not all but almost all of them with a quality of a certain animal He's going to talk about Issachar being like a donkey and Dan being like a serpent Naphtali being like a doe Benjamin being like a wolf But keep in mind that begins with Judah Judah is the first one to receive the animal quality and he receives the animal quality of the lion You say well why? Very quickly.
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Here's why Jacob Israel is showing why Reuben and Levi and Simeon are not the ones who will have preeminence and So he begins with their anti blessing or their curse to show you are not the one and you are not the one and you Are not the one Here's the one Judah is the lion the one from whom Kings shall come the one from whom Shiloh will come we'll talk about that and The one who will not lose preeminence He is the lion And then after him We get the others now I'm gonna do my best to Try to help you understand what some of this means but I want to I want to be very honest and say some of this is really obscure and I have read many commentaries and Commentaries are are great, but they often disagree with one another some people see it one way some people see it the other way let me give you a quick breakdown of the major differences to how these are How these are interpreted the first interpretation is to interpret these all Related to the men who are standing before Jacob and it's about them and their lives and in that case We don't know how this prophecy was played out because we don't really read much about their lives after this We see the death of Jacob and the death of Joseph and then we have a 400 year silent Years and then we're we're at the end right where we're at the beginning of Exodus So if it's about them directly, we don't know much.
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I Don't I don't tend to think that's the one Mine is more the second one The second one is that it's about their tribes and I do think that this is in related to their tribes and I'll talk about That but there is a third way to interpret this that I think is possible But I just don't I don't have enough evidence But I like to help you understand how my mind works and how did how to understand these texts because I think this is important The third way is that all of these prophecies represent? Israel as a nation at the end of time and God using them in the return of Christ now that is not the one that I hold to but there are some who do and they base this upon verse 1 and 2 Where he talks about no real quick go back to verse 1 and 2 he says Jacob called his sons gather yourselves together that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the days to come that phrase in Hebrew The days to come is sometimes used to refer to the end times the the days of the day of the Lord Right, and so there are some who tie these prophecies to something that may yet happen in the end time I don't take that position.
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I Don't think that's correct, but I'm not writing it off as an impossibility I'm just saying I believe this revert result.
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This refers to the tribes of Israel During the during and after the Exodus and here's here's my argument.
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Here's my brother Mike and I talk about all the time How do you come to your conclusion? This is as I came to this conclusion because This particular text has an audience You see this isn't being written during the time of Joseph This is being written during the time of Moses and it's being written to the tribes Now did Jacob say these things? Absolutely.
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He did but who was the intended audience? I Don't know that the intended audience focused so much on the brothers as much as it did on their children Who would be the recipients of this written word? So now we have if you think about the time of Moses You have the fully formed tribes of Israel about to go into the promised land They're about to receive the land that has been promised to them for over 500 years They're about to go in and take it and how do these prophecies apply to them? That's that's the way I see this Could I be wrong? Yes, I Don't think I am I don't get up here and say my opinions for nothing But I but I always tell you when I when there are different ways of looking at something.
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I I don't see these as End-times prophecies.
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I see these as in in time in the time of the persons who are reading it Make sense.
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All right with that being said let's look at Zebulun says Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea.
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He shall become a haven for ships and his border shall be at Sidon now keep this in mind Zebulun's the tenth son born to Jacob, but he is the seventh son the sixth son of Leah So he's mentioned in this he's mentioned in this list in a different place than his birth order and the reason why is because he's Going by wife not by birth He's already talked about Levi Simeon Judah and Reuben.
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That's the first four What's Reuben Levi Reuben Simeon Levi and Judah and now he's going to jump to number six Which is Zebulun and he tells us that He is going to dwell at the shore of the sea now where this becomes difficult is If you look at the land that was distributed to the the the twelve tribes Zebulun wasn't on the seashore So you might say well, wait a minute.
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Is God making a mistake here? No because even though Zebulun is a landlocked tribe Commentators have expressed something that we wouldn't know simply by reading the Bible, but we know this by biblical and extra biblical resources and that is that the neighbors of the tribe of Zebulun use Zebulun as a trading place between two ports and therefore they did have a a place in the ministration of those who were seafarers and Therefore, is it possible that that's what this is referencing possibly? In fact, I think very likely I'll read Elicott on this He says it is very possible that liver it living in the neighborhood of the Phoenicians They took part in maritime pursuits and thus the general meaning of this blessing may be that Zebulun would be a tribe not of Agriculturalists which some of them would be but of traders They're a tribe of traders who trade among those who? are seafarers Verse 14 we see it's a car.
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It's a car is a strong donkey Crouching between the sheep holds he saw that a resting place was good and that the land was pleasant So he bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant at forced labor Now it's interesting that he is mentioned after Zebulun because he actually was born before Zebulun But he's mentioned after Zebulun and he's mentioned in such a way that he's called a donkey Now donkey can be a good thing and a donkey can be a bad thing but in this sense, it's referring to the It actually that the simile here is the the word bony.
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Some of your translations say he is a bony donkey and That means a strongly built donkey Particularly adapted for carrying burdens.
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This is what Keelan Dellick says He's pointed to the fact that this tribe would would contend itself with material good devote itself to the labor and burden of agriculture Not strive after political power or rule Issachar would become a robust powerful race of men and receive a pleasant inheritance which would invite a comfortable repose However, there's also the reference here of being bowed and Becoming a servant so it could also reference the fact that they were not warriors Okay, so they weren't there were not warriors We're going to see the warriors warriors will come from Judah warriors will come from Dan even We'll see a negative sense in that and warriors will come from Benjamin.
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In fact, King Saul comes from Benjamin To Saul's come from Benjamin King Saul and Saul of Tarsus who was the Apostle Paul so we see There are warring war warring.
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That's let me try it again.
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There are tribes that have war Warriors and that's their focus.
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There are others who are traitors.
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There are tribes that are Agriculturalists and likely the prophecy here is the agriculture of Issachar Then we move to the oracles of the sons of Bilhah Bilhah is seen in 16 and 17 referring to Dan It says Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
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Isn't it interesting that? Samson is from the tribe of Dan and it references here as a judge It says in verse 17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way a viper in the path He will bite the horse's heel.
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So the rider falls backwards This is referencing not only power in battle, but also it's referencing an ability to be somewhat subversive in battle again going back to Samson brother Mike talked about Samson brother and he did too for weeks and And and how how he had that he was subversive in battle Now I want to mention this because this is important a Serpent is typically not found in a positive light.
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Amen It's in and they're not because snakes are devils, but it's in the Bible.
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I Do not like snakes.
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That's my daughter Thank you hope but I bring this out because the tribe of Dan If you go to the end of your Bible and you have to turn there But if you go to the end of your Bible to the book of Revelation, you'll notice that the tribes are listed But there's one that's not there and the tribe that is not there is the tribe of Dan Dan is not listed.
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Yeah, I know yeah, Dan is not mentioned and Some people believe and I think that there is merit to this that the reason Dan is not mentioned among the tribes is because During the time of the judges Dan falls into gross idolatry the tribe of Dan in the Divided Kingdom Dan I'm sorry, not the Divided Kingdom that was later in the in the time of the judges the tribe of Dan once the second most populous tribe Would eventually divide decline in numbers and By Ezra's time it would be totally wiped out There is References in in the book of Judges to the things that were done within the tribe of Dan if you want to hear more about that and go back and listen brother Andy brother Mike's messages, but It's very possible that this Dan this Dan that this tribe is ultimately overtaken and replaced because when you get to Revelation Joseph is brought back in and Dan is taken out because remember Joseph is out for his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh take his place But if you read of the twelve tribes in Revelation the one that's there for Dan is Joseph brought back in So I kind of think that the the fact that the serpent is mentioned here Could be illustrious of a future of following the great serpent who was Satan so The next one we're going to jump down to verse 21 because I'm keeping this the wives together and it does a Chaostic thing where it puts them in different order But I want to look at verse 21 because this is the the last son of Bilhah.
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This is naphtali It says naphtali is a doe let loose that bears beautiful fawns some there's some Argument about how the Hebrews translated here whether it should be a doe or whether it should be a different Way of translating this word.
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I don't want to get into all that but ultimately this is if we do think of it as a doe it is this is an animal that's free and agile and fast and Naphtali in battle would be fast and agile quick in its movements And therefore this is again likely a reference to battle warring and its ability in war Kealan Delwich again says the meaning of this illusion is Obscure since nothing further is known of the history of the tribe of naphtali Then that the nap then that naphtali obtained a great victory under Barak in association with Zebulun over the Canaanite King Jabin, which the prophetess Deborah commemorated in her celebratory song and judges four and five So could have reference to that and speed and out agility in battle It's a lot guys.
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We're getting it.
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We're making it.
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We're making it We've now come to gad and Asher both of these guys have less than a little not even a paragraph again, these this is the this is the Thaddeus and Nathanael of the of the twelve tribes.
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We don't hear much about them, right? So we get very little Raiders shall raid gad but he shall raid at their heels Probably the neatest part about that is how it reads in Hebrew Because the word gad and the word Raiders are almost the same word in Hebrew.
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So it's a play on words It literally means to be a raider is to be one who presses on someone else who pushes into someone else So literally that in Hebrew it reads something like this presser shall press the presser But the presser will press their heels Because it's just this over.
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It's it's a it's an it's an alliterative phrase.
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But again, it's about strength in battle They're gonna come against gad, but gad will Retaliate he will have power in battle.
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They will press on him, but he will press them back And then finally Asher I say finally not finally But number ten before we get to Joseph Joseph has several verses we get to number ten here in verse 20 Asher's food shall be rich and he shall yield royal delicacies This is an interesting one because Asher's tribe is not mentioned as being a battling tribe but rather is referencing the fruitfulness of the land Asher received the inheritance of the lowlands of Carmel on the Mediterranean as far as the territory of Tyre And one of the most fertile parts of Canaan that abounded in wheat and oil In fact if you were to look I think Deuteronomy 33 is interesting because Deuteronomy 33 has the blessings of the tribes and some of those blessings parallel here as Moses is giving the blessings and you see the blessings here.
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It's sort of a similar thing It talks about their feet dipping in oil Asher feet and so the idea they have a land that is fruitful Right that their land is fruitful with with with food and oil So that's the idea I believe here All right.
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Now finally to the sons of Rachel we have Joseph is a fruitful Bough he's a fruitful that the word bow there means like a branch of a tree.
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He's a fruitful branch a Fruitful branch by a spring his branches run over the wall Look at all that Joseph has done.
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Joseph is not only blessed himself He's not only blessed his family But the blessings of Joseph when we read this back in the last chapter have gone into all the world and and he is the Savior Of the world.
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He's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ having brought food to people who were starving.
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He becomes the the one who's Who is his branches have run over the wall? And by the way, I just have to say this all of the other brothers.
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It looks forward I do think this is looking back at his life I do think that there's a sense in which we're about to receive from J from Israel a Looking over of his life because that's what he just said is about something that's already happened.
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He was the his He's blessed the nation's Verse 23.
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I mentioned this a few times already the archers bitterly attacked him noticed by the way notice the change is now in the past tense Everything everything earlier was in the Future tense.
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This is gonna happen.
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This is gonna happen or it's in the present tense This is but this is now in the past tense and he says the archers bitterly attacked him Shot at him and harassed him severely.
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Now, who are the archers? I Think it's his brothers.
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I Think it's Potiphar's wife.
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I think it's the slave traders.
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I don't know you guys say anybody who harmed him or injured him They bitterly attacked him they shot at him they harassed him severely yet his bow remained Unmoved and his arms were made agile by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob from there is the Shepherd the stone of Israel notice what he's saying Joseph did all that he did by the power of Almighty God This wasn't just the fact that Joseph was a good man that he was a moral man that he was a man of integrity That he was a man who walked in wisdom No He did this because God's hand was upon him and you go all the way back To when he first was in the house of Potiphar and he got raised up to being the one in charge of his house the head Steward, what does it say? The Lord was with him? The whole time the Lord has been with Joseph.
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He has kept his hands agile He has kept him from being stung by the arrows of the archers.
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God has been with Joseph And he goes on in verse 25 by the God of your father who has helped you Who will help you by the Almighty who will bless you with the blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that? Crouches beneath blessings of the beasts and of the womb The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents up to the bounties of the everlasting hills May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers notice that phrase He was set apart from his brothers.
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How was he set apart? When he was sold into slavery when he was taken away from his family for 22 years But why was he separated from his family? He was separated from his family by God to be a blessing to the nations Bruce Waltke says this six times in the Joseph Oracle alone We have the Hebrew root of the word blessing The blessings include fertility Water from heaven Fertility not only in land but in body and the blessings given humanity at creation are concentrated in Joseph We come finally to Benjamin It's interesting because you would think he would end on that note of Joseph he had that, you know, seven or eight verses in the life of Joseph, but no he's going to end on Benjamin and He goes back to the animals.
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He's already talked about the doe and the lion and the the different animals now He says Benjamin is a ravenous wolf in The morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil.
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He's one who will battle with Intensity and bless with abundance.
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That's the idea Notice what it says he will devour the prey in the morning, but he will divide the spoil in the evening he he is one who is battle hardened and blessing providing the last thing we read for today is verse 28 and This is the Oracle concluding with a declaration of tribal identity Notice verse 28 all these are the twelve tribes of Israel This is what their father said to them as he blessed them Notice Moses is now taking the position of narrator.
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This is what their father said to them Blessing each With the blessing suitable to them And like I said, this is the first time we see the phrase the twelve tribes of Israel Some were given direct blessings some were given anti blessings and some were given straight-up rebukes But each one according to verse 28 each one got what he deserved from his father Now Draw to a close This passage may seem obscure to us It may seem a little strange to us and some of you may leave here going I can't believe he did all 11 of those at one time But we must for a moment think at least about this We are getting a glimpse into the room of a dying man Giving his last words to his sons the next thing we're going to read After we go through this the point about Judah The next thing we're going to read in the narrative is he's going to pull his feet up in the bed and die So this is it these are the last words of Israel But as I said, I don't believe these words were for the sons alone I believe these words are for their descendants The focus is not on the twelve men in the room, but the twelve tribes that will come from their loins and so I have to deal with the question as I always do How does this apply to us? Because I have already told you I think the primary application is in the original audience and we must always remember that when we are exegeting a text the most important part of the meaning and the meaning is always driven by the context of history and who the audience who is receiving this message and Keep in mind the Bible is not all about you So if somebody said well, what is the application of today? well we could we could look at it from their point of view the application is they the people of Israel are there in the Exodus they are between Egypt and the Promised Land Moses is writing these things He's reading these things to them and they are hearing these words and they're hearing their their own lives being planned out by Almighty God and Realizing God is the sovereign Lord who has had this plan ever since before We were ever enslaved in Egypt You understand that that the people of Israel didn't spend 400 years in slavery by accident But they were there by the designed hand of Almighty God because God had planned a day He had fixed a day where he would raise up a man named Moses who would be the Redeemer of Israel Who would lead them out and would lead them in to the Promised Land dying only on the sishore so that his predecessor Joshua could take them in and conquer the land So to them they're seeing God's hand at work written their very Fortunes written and I don't mean fortunes like a fortune cookie I mean their prophecies of their destinies are being written by Almighty God in his book Beloved you understand you serve a God who is not surprised if you wake up tomorrow and find out you have heart disease You serve a God who is not surprised if tomorrow on your way to work You're in an accident and you lose a limb or you lose a family member or you die You understand you serve a God who is sovereign over all those things He's sovereign over where you live He's sovereign over what you do and he is not taken by surprise Now does that mean what we do doesn't matter no what we do does matter if you don't believe that go ask Reuben He found out that what he did actually mattered Decades later.
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He's standing before his father and he's hearing you were preeminent.
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You were the firstborn Oh, and by the way, you're not the leader because you went up to my couch Brothers if I can remind you this you are not saved by your works, but that doesn't mean your works don't matter You're not saved by your works, but that doesn't mean your works don't matter because your deeds have consequences and he's gonna stay in jail until he fills out a sentence because Even though we're saved by grace our actions have consequences So think about how you're living today Are you living in light of the glory of God's sovereignty? Seeking to fulfill his will in your life seeking to be obedient to the captives of the world Jesus Christ, are you living like the foolish people who say I'm going to continue in sin so that grace can abound Paul says don't do that How can we who are dead to sin still live in it So there is a lot that we can apply from this passage to ourselves The sovereign God of the universe is the captain of our soul He calls us to a life of obedience and a life of obedience is one of repentance because we fail every day But if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and Cleanse us of all unrighteousness because of what has been done through Jesus Christ Beloved I pray this message is an encouragement to you to walk in obedience to the Lord To receive with grace the Perhaps the difficulties of sins of the past that you're still dealing with consequences understanding that the sovereign Lord has ordained all things for the good of those who love him and Seek to live your life in a way that pleases him not to be saved.
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These men were all in the covenant by grace and So are you? But keep in mind It still matters how we live.
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So let us live our lives to the glory of God Let's pray Father we thank you for your word and we thank you for the opportunity to to hear this this wonderful oracle from the mouth of Israel God may these words be applied to our heart and Lord if there are Areas that we as men and women Need to repent Lord help us to repent Most importantly Lord if there are those who do not yet trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior That today that they would turn from their sins that they would turn from trusting in themselves or in some other God to trusting in the true and living God Through his son Jesus Christ now Lord.