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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Genesis 49:1 - 49:4
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The Blessing upon Reuben
v. 1. And Jacob called unto his sons, he summoned them to his death-bed, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. In prophetic exaltation and in poetic form he sets before them what the future has in store for them, especially as to the Messianic blessings, until the end of time.
v. 2. Gather yourselves together and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel, your father. The solemn and impressive admonition was made in order to get their full attention. The things which would befall them according to their dispositions and natures, but above all according to the providence and will of God, are now set forth.
v. 3. Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power. Jacob speaks with deep feeling: Reuben, my first-born thou, my might and the head of my strength. He was the first-fruits of Jacob's vigor, both spiritual and bodily. In him the dignity of the priesthood should have been united with the power of the ruler. But all this Reuben had forfeited.
v. 4. Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; he was like the bubbling of boiling water, rashly impulsive, and therefore he would lose the dignity and the preference of his birthright. Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed, in lying with Bilhah, his father's concubine, Gen_35:22; then defiledst thou it, he desecrated what should have been sacred to him. It was a crime from which the father even now, after the lapse of so many years, turned with horror, saying, with a tinge of repulsion and bitterness; he went up to my couch.