Thy Strong Word — Genesis 49:1-28: The Lion of Judah

² “Assemble and listen, O sons of Jacob,
    listen to Israel your father.

³ “Reuben, you are my firstborn,
    my might, and the firstfruits of my strength,
    preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
⁴ Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence,
    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;
    weapons of violence are their swords.
⁶ Let my soul come not into their council;
    O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men,
    and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.
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, your brothers shall praise you;
    your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;
    your father’s sons shall 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
    and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;^[a]
    and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine
    and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
    and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
¹² His eyes are darker than wine,
    and his teeth whiter than milk.

¹³ “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea;
    he shall become a haven for ships,
    and his border shall be at Sidon.

¹⁴ “Issachar is a strong donkey,
    crouching between the sheepfolds.^[b]
15 He saw that a resting place was good,
    and that the land was pleasant,
so he bowed his shoulder to bear,
    and became a servant at forced labor.

¹⁶ “Dan shall judge his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.
¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent in the way,
    a viper by the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
    so that his rider falls backward.
¹⁸ I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹ “Raiders shall raid Gad,^[c]
    but he shall raid at their heels.

²⁰ “Asher’s food shall be rich,
    and he shall yield royal delicacies.

²¹ “Naphtali is a doe let loose
    that bears beautiful fawns.^[d]

²² “Joseph is a fruitful bough,
    a fruitful bough by a spring;
    his branches run over the wall.^[e]
23 The archers bitterly attacked him,
    shot at him, and harassed him severely,
²⁴ yet his bow remained unmoved;
    his arms^[f] were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
    (from there is the Shepherd,^[g] the Stone of Israel),
²⁵ by the God of your father who will help you,
    by the Almighty^[h] who will bless you
    with blessings of heaven above,
blessings of the deep that crouches beneath,
    blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
²⁶ The blessings of your father
    are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents,
    up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.^[i]
May they be on the head of Joseph,
    and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

²⁷ “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
    in the morning devouring the prey
    and at evening dividing the spoil.”