49:1 Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather together so I can tell you 6 what will happen to you in the future. 7
1 tn The verb is a direct imperative: “And you, take for yourself.” The form stresses the immediate nature of the instruction; the pronoun underscores the directness.
2 tn Heb “from all food,” meaning “some of every kind of food.”
3 tn Or “will be eaten.”
4 tn Heb “and gather it to you.”
5 tn Heb “will see for himself.” The construction means “to look out for; to see to it; to provide.”
sn God will provide is the central theme of the passage and the turning point in the story. Note Paul’s allusion to the story in Rom 8:32 (“how shall he not freely give us all things?”) as well as H. J. Schoeps, “The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul’s Theology,” JBL 65 (1946): 385-92.
6 tn After the imperative, the cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose/result.
7 tn The expression “in the future” (אַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים, ’akharit hayyamim, “in the end of days”) is found most frequently in prophetic passages; it may refer to the end of the age, the eschaton, or to the distant future. The contents of some of the sayings in this chapter stretch from the immediate circumstances to the time of the settlement in the land to the coming of Messiah. There is a great deal of literature on this chapter, including among others C. Armerding, “The Last Words of Jacob: Genesis 49,” BSac 112 (1955): 320-28; H. Pehlke, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Genesis 49:1-28” (Th.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1985); and B. Vawter, “The Canaanite Background of Genesis 49,” CBQ 17 (1955): 1-18.