Genesis 49:1-15 NKJV
49 And Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days:
2 “Gather together and hear, you sons of Jacob,
And listen to Israel your father.
3 “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
My might and the beginning of my strength,
The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.
4 Unstable as water, you shall not excel,
Because you went up to your father’s bed;
Then you defiled it—
He went up to my couch.
5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers;
Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.
6 Let not my soul enter their council;
Let not my honor be united to their assembly;
For in their anger they slew a man,
And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.
7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;
And their wrath, for it is cruel!
I will divide them in Jacob
And scatter them in Israel.
8 “Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise;
Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
Your father’s children shall bow down before you.
9 Judah is a lion’s whelp;
From the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He bows down, he lies down as a lion;
And as a lion, who shall rouse him?
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes;
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.
11 Binding his donkey to the vine,
And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
He washed his garments in wine,
And his clothes in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes are darker than wine,
And his teeth whiter than milk.
13 “Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea;
He shall become a haven for ships,
And his border shall adjoin Sidon.
14 “Issachar is a strong donkey,
Lying down between two burdens;
15 He saw that rest was good,
And that the land was pleasant;
He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden,
And became a band of slaves.
In today’s reading Jacob has called all his sons together to tell them how their lives would go from this point forward. For some there was good news, but for others there was bad news. There were promises for some, threats for others. Luther says that Jacob “is about to speak on a great and memorable matter, namely, on the promise and the threat. And it is truly a great and difficult thing to speak beforehand about future matters with such certainty” (AE Vol 8). The importance and urgency of these promises and threats is evident; this is how our forefathers in the faith dealt with their sons; the father’s words were to be received as from God Himself, no matter what those words were.
God indeed makes promises to His people, but at the same time He also tests and exercises them in the faith and teaches that they should live more by the Word than by bread, as Moses testifies in Deut. 8:3–4: “He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”
Luther also reminds us to “be careful to hold fast to the fact that God makes promises and defers the things promised…in order to instruct us in faith in the promise and in order that this faith may be strengthened and may learn to believe God not only in prosperous times, when things are available, but also in adversity, when things are lacking” (AE Vol 8).
We need to understand and believe that God makes promises for our good; He never breaks those promises. Trust in what He has done and said rather than focus on your circumstances and feelings. May our good and gracious God bless you with certainty in His Word and grant you His peace in all things.
Let us pray: O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth. Thank You for making me Your child and grant me grace to accept and believe all Your promises, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.