Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Deuteronomy · About this commentary
The Blessing: Reuben to Joseph
Deuteronomy 33:1-17
1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. · WEB
A man forbidden the land blesses the tribes who will have it, and Levi is praised for the very act that cost him his family.
This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death Deuteronomy 33:1.
He has just been told to go up a mountain and die. What he does with the interval is bless the people who will receive what he cannot.
The opening is a picture of God arriving — from Sinai, from Seir, from Paran, from the ten thousands of holy ones Deuteronomy 33:2. Then a line about the people that is easy to miss: they sat down at your feet. Each receives your words Deuteronomy 33:3.
The posture is a pupil's. Whatever else has gone wrong in forty years, Moses' last picture of Israel is of people sitting down to be taught.
Reuben is given the barest blessing of all: let Reuben live, and not die Deuteronomy 33:6. Survival, and no more. The firstborn who lost his birthright gets a prayer that his tribe will still exist.
Judah's is a plea rather than a promise, and it has an odd loneliness in it: bring him in to his people... you shall be a help against his adversaries Deuteronomy 33:7. The royal tribe is prayed for as one that will need help.
Levi receives the longest blessing and the strangest, because it praises what looks like cruelty. He said of his father, and of his mother, 'I have not seen him.' He didn't acknowledge his brothers, nor did he know his own children Deuteronomy 33:9.
The reference is to the day of the golden calf, when the Levites acted against their own relatives. What is commended is not indifference to family but a loyalty that held when family was on the other side — and the reason is stated: for they have observed your word, and keep your covenant.
And the office it earned them is described in the order that matters to this book: they shall teach Jacob your ordinances, and Israel your law comes before the incense and the burnt offering Deuteronomy 33:10. The priesthood's first job is instruction.
Benjamin's is the tenderest line in the chapter. The beloved of Yahweh will dwell in safety by him. He covers him all day long. He dwells between his shoulders Deuteronomy 33:12 — a child carried on someone's back, held all day.
Joseph's is the longest and the most agricultural, listing what the heavens, the deep, the sun, the moon, the mountains and the earth yield Deuteronomy 33:13–16. In the middle of it is a phrase reaching back to the beginning of Moses' own life: the good will of him who lived in the bush.
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