Jacob the Prophet Genesis 49:1-33

Jacob said that few and evil were his days. This was the assessment of his life that he gave to the Pharaoh. He had lived for 130 years and saw that his body was deteriorating faster than his father. Doubtless, he had heard of stories of his ancestors of his grandfather Abraham that was alive when Shem was alive. And Shem was alive when Methuselah was alive. And Methuselah was alive when Adam was alive. His life in comparison to them was merely a moment compared to those that came before him. And now, Jacob began to feel the cold of death approaching and knew his time on earth was coming to an end. God had given him 17 years in the land of Egypt. He saw his sons’ families begin to grow. He saw that God was with the next generation and the next generation of his family. And so Jacob begins to set things in order as he prepares to exit the world. Jacob’s knowledge of his impending death was a blessing from God but also it provided for a time for the greater purposes of God to be worked out. What Jacob does and says in his final days affects and foretells the future. In our chapter today we have the final blessing of Jacob upon his sons. It is written in poetic form, which you can tell by the heavy use of imagery and the meter of the sentences. Many translations of the Bible help us to see this by offsetting the type. But these words are not a last will and testament of a dying man but they serve as a final restatement of one of the great themes of Genesis. In Genesis 1:28, God blessed mankind and he gave them paradise. But in Genesis chapter 3, Adam rebelled and paradise was lost. His actions brought upon the universe a curse. Yet, even in God’s pronouncement of the curse, there was hope. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Genesis keeps pointing us ahead. There are reminders of the blessing of God, after the flood, at Abraham’s calling, at Israel’s entrance into his time of sojourning in Egypt. Even now at the end of Jacob’s life, we are reminded of this great truth: The blessing of God upon mankind will be restored. One is coming that will do this. All those faithful in Genesis greeted these promises from afar, but the fullness of time would come, and the promised would come and dwell among us.