The Blessing of Jacob is a poem that appears in Genesis at 49:1-27.
The poem presents an opinion of the merits and attributes of each of the Tribes of Israel, and so can be compared with the Blessing of Moses, which has the same theme. See also History of ancient Israel and Judah According to the Bible, the Israelites were the dominant group living in the Land of Israel. The Blessing of Moses is a Poem that appears in Deuteronomy at 332-27 However, there is very little in common between the poems, except for describing one of the tribes as a judge, and another as a lion's whelp, though in the Blessing of Jacob it is Dan that is the judge and Judah the whelp, whereas in the other poem it is Gad that is the judge and Dan the whelp. The lion ( Panthera leo) is a member of the family Felidae and one of four Big cats in the Genus Panthera. Tribe of Dan was also a band from the mid 1990s The Tribe of Dan ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Judah ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height it was the leading tribe of the Kingdom of Judah, and occupied most of the territory of the kingdom The Tribe of Gad ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height Gad occupied a region to the east of the River Jordan, though the exact location is ambiguous
Also, unlike the Blessing of Moses, that of Jacob is not afraid to castigate some of the tribes, in particular, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi. The Tribe of Reuben ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height the territory it occupied was on the immediate east of the Dead Sea, reaching from the The Tribe of Simeon ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height the territory it occupied was in the southwest of Canaan, bordered on the east and south by In the Jewish tradition a Levite ( is a member of the Hebrew tribe of Levi. The poem appears to aim to describe why each of the tribes suffered the fate they did, and thus explains the small territory of Reuben, the firstborn, compared to Judah, as being due to Reuben's incest (abruptly mentioned at Genesis 49:3-4). Incest refers to any sexual activity between closely related persons (often within the immediate family that is illegal or socially Taboo. Also, as Simeon's territory was completely within that of Judah, and Levi only had a few scattered cities, these fates were described as being due to their wickedness. Most of the other tribes have brief descriptions suiting their main characteristic, whether it be seafaring or beautiful princesses. Seamanship is the art of operating a ship or boat It involves a knowledge of a variety of topics and development of specialised skills including Navigation and international NOTICE TO WOULD-BE-ROMEOS*************** Princess is the feminine form of Prince (from Latin Princeps, meaning principal citizen
However, Judah and the Joseph tribes both receive extensive blessings, suited to their pre-eminence, Judah's as the major component of the Kingdom of Judah, and the Joseph tribes, in particular Ephraim, as the pre-eminent group in the Kingdom of Israel. The Tribe of Joseph was one of the Tribes of Israel, though since Ephraim and Manasseh together traditionally constituted the tribe of Joseph it was often Judea is a term used for the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel. The Tribe of Ephraim (} was one of the Tribes of Israel; together with the Tribe of Manasseh, Ephraim also formed the House of Joseph The Kingdom of Israel ( ( KJV Israel in Samaria) was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy (also often called the 'Kingdom of Israel' In particular, Joseph is described as mighty, and thus as conquering, but Judah's authority is described as given directly by God, and consequently it suits the southern (i. e. Judah) bias of the Jahwist.
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Suspicious verses
It has been held by some authorities that the text is not intact. Verses 10, 25, 26, and probably verse 18, are regarded as interpolations. Verse 10 interrupts the continuity of thought, verse 11 taking up the thread dropped in verse 8. All these verses touch upon the possession of the land of promise; whereas verse 10 refers to the future and to the submission of the people. Verses 25 and 26 bear a suspicious resemblance to Deuteronomy 33:13–16; and while the text of verses 22–24, corresponding to other very ancient songs, presents a knotty problem, verses 25 and 26 are comparatively intelligible (Edgar Innes Fripp, in "Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft," 1891, pp. Deuteronomy (Greek deuteronomion, Δευτερονόμιον "second law" is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament 262 et seq. ; Heinrich Holzinger, Commentar zur Genesis, ad loc. ). The lack of connection between verse 18 and the other verses is made clear by the form of the matter: the speech concerning Dan consists of three couplets, and verse 18 seems to hobble lamely after. Moreover, the idea expressed in verse 18 is different from that of the other verses (comp. Ball, "S. B. O. T. " ad loc. ).
Date of composition
The difficulty of an exact determination is increased by doubt concerning the unity of the composition. The first to dispute its unity was Ernest Renan (Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques, p. Ernest Renan ( February 28, 1823 &ndash October 12, 1892) was a French Philosopher and writer deeply attached to his native iii. ); and the conjecture that the song consists of sayings originating in different periods gains more and more credence (J. P. N. Land, Disputatio de Carmine Jacobi, 1857; Kuenen, Holzinger, and others). The great variety of forms in the song supports this theory: while the language of one part is smooth and clear, another part is obscure. The determination of the correctness of this theory involves an investigation of the age of each verse; and in several instances this can not be ascertained, since the verses indicate nothing concerning the time of their origin (see verses on Zebulun, Gad, Asher, and Naphtali). The Tribe of Zebulun ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height the territory it occupied was at the southern end of The Galilee, with its eastern border being The Tribe of Asher ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height Asher dwelled in western Galilee, a region with comparatively low temperature and much rainfall The Tribe of Naphtali ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height Naphtali occupied the eastern side of The Galilee (on the immediate west of the Sea of The verses on Issachar refer to the period after the struggles of Deborah (Judges 5); the verses on Dan, describing his battles in the north, where in his conflicts with the surrounding nations he maintained the old Israelitish custom of making an insidious rear attack instead of offering a bold challenge, refer to the time after Judges chapters 17 and following; and the verses on Judah (8, 11) presuppose the kingdom of Judah. The Tribe of Issachar ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. At its height the territory it occupied was immediately north of (the western half of Manasseh, and south See also Biblical judges Book of Judges List of women warriors in folklore literature and popular culture Book of Judges ( Hebrew: Sefer Shoftim ספר שופטים is a book of the Bible originally written in Hebrew. The comparison of Judah to a lion's whelp seems to characterize him as a rising power. This may apply to different periods, not necessarily to the time of David.
The verses on Joseph (22-27) allude to a defensive war, in which Joseph was successful. Since the text refers to archers, and the Arabs were excellent marksmen, August Dillmann thinks that the war was with the Arabs. Christian Friedrich August Dillmann ( April 25, 1823 - July 7, 1894) was a German orientalist and biblical scholar But his conjecture is erroneous; for the conflicts with the Arabs were confined to the portion of Manasseh east of the Jordan, and the term "Joseph" designates the portion of the tribe of Joseph dwelling west of the Jordan. The Tribe of Menasheh ( was one of the Tribes of Israel. Together with the Tribe of Ephraim, Menasheh also formed the House of Joseph. Since, moreover, the reference could not have been to the Philistines, by whom the tribe was occasionally subdued, the verse clearly alludes to the Arameans of Damascus, with whom the conflicts were of long duration, often threatening the safety of the tribe of Joseph -- that is, of the Northern Kingdom. The Philistines ( Hebrew פלשתים plishtim) (see "other uses" below were a people who inhabited the southern coast of Canaan, Verse 24, however, bears no testimony of times following the glorious period of Jeroboam II; consequently the passage on Joseph points to the ninth century. Jeroboam II (ירבעם השני was the son and successor of Jehoash, (alternatively spelled Joash and the fourteenth king of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, over Probably it was in the second half of this century, at all events before the conquests of Jeroboam, and evidently in the Southern Kingdom, that the collection of these pithy descriptions of the tribes was completed. If verses 25 and 26 are interpolations, this is the only interpretation which would also explain both the esteem felt for Judah, expressed in the passage on him, and the silence concerning the Benjamite kingdom and possibly even the Northern Kingdom.
Dillmann endeavored to arrive at the same conclusion by the supposed sequence in the enumerationof the minor tribes, proceeding from south to north. But this supposition is not tenable; for the very first tribe mentioned is the most northerly, and, furthermore, the sequence is broken by Gad. However, even if there were an exact geographical succession of tribes from south to north, it would prove nothing concerning the home of the collector of the passages, since the same order would have been natural for an Ephraimite (compare Holzinger ad loc. The Tribe of Ephraim (} was one of the Tribes of Israel; together with the Tribe of Manasseh, Ephraim also formed the House of Joseph ).
Zimmern's attempt (in "Zeit. für Assyriologie," 1892, pp. 161 et seq. ) to connect Jacob's blessing with the Babylonian representation of the zodiac, specifically with the Gilgamesh epic, can not be regarded as successful. Gilgamesh was the son of Lugalbanda and the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II first dynasty of Uruk ruling circa 2600 BC according to the Sumerian king Ball has given some important and well-founded arguments against this theory (Commentary on Genesis in "S. B. O. T. " pp. 114 et seq. ). Zimmern himself does not assume that the poet or collector of the song was aware of the original significance of each passage.
Historically, Jacob's blessing is of the greatest value, both because it is the only source of information for certain of the tribes in ancient times, and because it is an aid in rendering the sources (for example, Gen. 34) more intelligible.
References
See, besides the commentaries on Genesis of Dillmann, Merx, Knobel, Delitzsch, Holzinger, Ball, and Gunkel:
- Ludwig Diestel, Segen Jakobs, 1853;
- Ernst Heinrich Meier, Geschichte der Poetischen Nationalliteratur, 1858;
- Kaufmann Kohler, Der Segen Jakobs, 1867;
- Augustus Newton Obbard, The Prophecy of Jacob, Cambridge 1867. Kaufmann Kohler ( May 10, 1843, Fürth, Bavaria – January 28, 1926) was a German-born U
External links
- Biblical Hebrew Poetry - Reconstructing the Original Oral, Aural and Visual Experience
- Blessing of Jacob - Reconstruction
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