The scepter will not depart from Judah
1 Jacob called to his sons, and said: “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which will happen to you in the days to come. 2 Assemble yourselves, and hear, you sons of Jacob. Listen to Israel, your father. 3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in dignity, and excelling in power. 4 Boiling over like water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed, then defiled it. He went up to my couch. 5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their swords are weapons of violence. 6 My soul, don’t come into their council. My glory, don’t be united to their assembly; for in their anger they killed men. In their self-will they hamstrung cattle. 7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. 8 “Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons will bow down before you. 9 Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, as a lioness. Who will rouse him up? 10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. The obedience of the peoples will be to him. 11 Binding his foal to the vine, his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. 12 His eyes will be red with wine, his teeth white with milk. 13 “Zebulun will dwell at the haven of the sea. He will be for a haven of ships. His border will be on Sidon. 14 “Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between the saddlebags. 15 He saw a resting place, that it was good, the land, that it was pleasant. He bows his shoulder to the burden, and becomes a servant doing forced labor. 16 “Dan will judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. 17 Dan will be a serpent on the trail, an adder in the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward. 18 I have waited for your salvation, Yahweh. 19 “A troop will press on Gad, but he will press on their heel. 20 “Asher’s food will be rich. He will produce royal dainties. 21 “Naphtali is a doe set free, who bears beautiful fawns. 22 “Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a spring. His branches run over the wall. 23 The archers have severely grieved him, shot at him, and persecuted him: 24 But his bow remained strong. The arms of his hands were made strong, by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, (from there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel), 25 even 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 lies below, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb. 26 The blessings of your father have prevailed above the blessings of my ancestors, above the boundaries of the ancient hills. They will be on the head of Joseph, on the crown of the head of him who is separated from his brothers. 27 “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf. In the morning he will devour the prey. At evening he will divide the plunder.” 28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them, and blessed them. He blessed everyone according to his own blessing.
A dying father tells twelve sons what is coming, and the promise lands on the fourth-born because the three above him disqualified themselves.
Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which will happen to you in the days to come. The poem that follows is the longest in Genesis and it is not a set of good wishes. Several of these are verdicts.
The first three are the reckoning the book has been deferring.
Reuben is addressed with everything that should have been his — my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in dignity, and excelling in power — and then loses it in one line: Boiling over like water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father's bed. The single verse dropped without comment in chapter thirty-five Genesis 35:22 is answered here, and the answer is that the firstborn's place is gone.
Simeon and Levi are taken together and cursed together, and the ground is Shechem: in their anger they killed men. What Jacob objected to at the time was the damage to his reputation Genesis 34:30; on his deathbed he finally says the right thing — Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel — and pronounces a sentence: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel. Both tribes were scattered, and in Levi's case the scattering became a priesthood distributed through the whole nation, which is a judgment that God later turned into a vocation.
And so the succession arrives at the fourth son, and Judah's oracle is the longest and the greatest. Judah, your brothers will praise you — a play on the name Leah gave him when she stopped hoping for her husband's love Genesis 29:35. A lion's cub, gone up from the prey, crouching where nobody will rouse him.
Then the verse: The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs. The obedience of the peoples will be to him.
The crucial clause is disputed and the English translations divide, some rendering the last word as a name and others, as here, as a phrase about the one whose right it is. What every reading preserves is the shape: rule stays with this tribe until someone comes to whom it properly belongs, and when he comes the obedience is not Israel's alone but of the peoples — the nations, which is where this book began, with all the families of the earth blessed through one man.
That is the promise of chapter three moving into a tribe. The offspring who would bruise the serpent's head has been narrowing for forty-nine chapters — from the woman, to Shem, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob — and here it reaches a son, and a scepter, and the obedience of nations. David comes from this tribe, and the New Testament opens by tracing a genealogy through it Matthew 1:2–3 and closes by calling him the Lion who is of the tribe of Judah Revelation 5:5.
The remaining oracles are shorter, and one line stands apart from all of them. In the middle of Dan's, with no preparation, the old man breaks off: I have waited for your salvation, Yahweh.
It is the only first-person sentence in the poem and it is a prayer. A hundred-and-forty-seven-year-old man, halfway through prophesying about his sons, stops and says out loud that he is still waiting. Everything he was promised is still in front of him, and he knows it, and he says so with a few hours left.
Joseph's blessing is the most generous — a fruitful vine whose branches run over the wall, archers who grieved him, and a bow that remained strong by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob. Even here the strength is credited away from the man.
settled What this mark means