In Days to Come

We've been walking with Jacob so long, it's hard to believe he's reaching the close of his story. But it's fitting he should get to bring us full circle. This book began “in the beginning” (Genesis 1:1), and now Jacob opens his mouth to discuss what will be “in the latter days” (Genesis 49:1).¹ Jacob – Israel – has summoned his sons to his deathbed, to speak his final words and pass on his blessing, not to one son in opposition to the others, but to all his twelve sons together, one by one,² prophetically “outlining the future history of the tribes.”³

The Bible's opening five books are in fact tied together by three poems on the last days: Jacob's here, Balaam's in Numbers, and Moses' at the end of Deuteronomy, all three taking looking back to the story of creation.⁴ Jacob's is organized so beautifully in Hebrew, 260 words in 26 verses.⁵ After eight words of introduction, he starts addressing the sons of Leah, ends with the sons of Rachel, and in between are the sons of the handmaids, Zilpah's kids between Bilhah's.⁶ To the six sons of Leah he speaks 7x20 words; to the two sons of Rachel he speaks 7x10 words; and the four sons of the handmaids share 7x6 words.⁷ But Joseph and Judah dominate it all, together taking up 45% of all the words Jacob says; nobody else comes close. The trouble with this poem is, it's “the most difficult segment of the book of Genesis,”⁸ “archaic and difficult (if not impossible) to understand,”⁹ loaded with Hebrew puns and metaphors and “words the meaning of which is uncertain.”¹⁰ What's clear is that, with these words for the twelve sons of Israel, the tribes named for each are each “ordained to a particular vocation in the larger life of Israel,”¹¹ based on “the nature of the different tribes” and their founding fathers.¹²

Jacob starts off with Reuben, “my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power” (Genesis 49:3). As the first son, he would've been heir-apparent to every promise and privilege. But Genesis painted us a picture of “Reuben's ineptitude in his several attempts to lead,”¹³ showing he “lacks dependability, persistence, patience, and control.”¹⁴ Jacob sees he's “wanton as water,” so Reuben “shall not have preeminence.” His sin of assaulting Bilhah is case in point: “You went up to your father's bed, then you profaned it” (Genesis 49:4). While Israel said nothing then (Genesis 35:22), now he announces it; and, “because he defiled his father's couch, his birthright was given” away (1 Chronicles 5:1).

On the way out of Egypt, Reuben was the seventh-largest of the tribes; they headed up the camp on the south side of the Tabernacle, which traveled second when Israel marched (Numbers 1:21; 2:10-16). From the far end of the desert, Reuben sent a scout named Shammua (Numbers 13:4), but not only did he whip Israel into fearing Canaan, then three men from Reuben – Dathan, Abiram, and On – attacked Moses' leadership without even the courage to come confront him directly (Numbers 6:1-15).¹⁵ At the end of forty years, the tribe of Reuben had shrunk and was just ninth-largest (Numbers 26:7). But Moses prayed for them in some of his last words, “May Reuben live and not die, though his men be few” (Deuteronomy 33:6), leading some to hope that “this curse of Reuben was blotted out by Moses,”¹⁶ since “as lawgiver he was able to turn the curse into a blessing.”¹⁷

Reuben claimed land on the east side of the Dead Sea, around the mountain whence Moses gazed across at the Promised Land from the outside (Joshua 13:15-23); they shared the far side of Jordan with Gad and Manasseh, also each the first children of their unfavored mothers.¹⁸ Though Reuben helped in the initial conquest, later their aid was needed again but they “sat still among the sheepfolds, to hear the whistling for the flocks” (Judges 5:16). Eventually, when “the LORD began to cut off parts of Israel,” the chosen territory of Reuben was among the first to go, falling early to the Arameans (2 Kings 10:32-33); those left behind were deported by the Assyrians to what's now northern Afghanistan (1 Chronicles 5:26). Later Jews guessed the prophet Joel for a Reubenite,¹⁹ but Reuben's “tragic trajectory” shows a tribe whose “false dream can never be a reality.”²⁰ When early Christians looked at Reuben in Jacob's prophecy, they saw a picture of the chronic waywardness of God's people, “obstinate and rigid, wild and impetuous,” to be unstable and prone to wander – prone to leave the God we love, settling short of the promised land.²¹ Reuben stands here as a warning to the “double-minded man, unstable in all his ways..., like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6-8). Medieval traditions in the Ethiopian church guessed that the Apostle Andrew was counted among the sons of Reuben,²² while medieval Syriac tradition said the same about the Matthias who was chosen by lot to replace Judas.²³

Jacob's attention turns next on his next two kids taken together. “Simeon and Levi are brothers,” peas in a pod; as sons of Leah close in age, both named for their mom's frustrated longing for their dad's love, they bonded over a shared anger toward injustice.²⁴ But “instruments of violence are their swords” (Genesis 49:5). Jacob isn't pleased with their overkill: “Let my soul come not into their council; O my glory, be joined not to their assembly!” He wants nothing to do with what these boys get up to together. Exhibit A is Genesis 34: “In their anger they slew man, and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen” (Genesis 49:6).²⁵ Jacob curses their anger's ferocity, their wrath's cruelty, and decrees, “I will divide them in Jacob, I will scatter them in Israel” (Genesis 49:7), as God scattered the ancients to stop their posing such a concentrated threat again (Genesis 11:8).²⁶

At the exodus, Simeon's the third-largest tribe, while Levi is by far the smallest (Numbers 1:23; 3:39). Yet the exodus is led by Levi's most famous son: Moses, himself no stranger to zealous outrage against injustice and sin – just ask the Egyptian he killed, the tablets he broke, or the people he forced to drink their golden calf (Exodus 2:1-2, 11-12; 32:19-20).²⁷ But that's the moment to revise Jacob's curse. See, after smashing stone and grinding gold, Moses cried out for everyone on the LORD's side to assemble, “and all the sons of Levi gathered around him.” Moses bade the Levites take their infamous swords and go deal out divine punishment. The sons of Levi “did according to the word of Moses...; and Moses said, 'Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you'” (Exodus 32:25-29), since the Levites had been made their zeal an asset for God instead of just a liability.²⁸

So once the Tabernacle was built, the Simeonites and their chief Shelumiel camped under Reuben to the south (Numbers 2:12-13), while the Levites took the inner perimeter, a buffer of bouncers stationed to cut down any would-be trespasser on the holy (Numbers 3:21-29). When the Simeonite noble Zimri defiantly flaunted before Moses his public dalliance with the Midianite princess Cozbi, it was a Levite, Aaron's grandson Phinehas, who rescued Israel from wrath by spearing Zimri and Cozbi through (Numbers 25:6-15). From that day on, where “Simeon not only did not repay his debt, but even borrowed more,” Levi had turned their tendencies to God's service.²⁹ The sons of Simeon were “ruined by promiscuity..., but they shall not be able to withstand Levi, because he shall wage the Lord's war.”³⁰ Thus the two peas-in-a-pod brothers were divided against each other.³¹

By the time they left the desert, Simeon's population had cratered catastrophically after all these judgments, and it had become the smallest of all the counted tribes (Numbers 26:4).³² When Moses prayed for the tribes, he just snubbed Simeon altogether, but spoke lavishly of Levi's ministry (Deuteronomy 33:8-11).³³ Jacob's prophecy held true for both: Simeon was given a “scattered inheritance” inside the land assigned to Judah, as if to be monitored (Joshua 19:1-9),³⁴ and ultimately Simeon was “absorbed into the tribe of Judah”;³⁵ the Levites were assigned forty-eight select cities scattered among all the tribes (Joshua 21:4-40). Levi was tasked to focus on “heavenly matters,”³⁶ spread out to minister to Israel – and to reduce the risk they'd pose concentrated together.³⁷

The priest Eli of Shiloh was a Levite, descended from Aaron's son Ithamar (1 Samuel 1:9). Psalms were written by Levite musicians like Asaph (1 Chronicles 6:39-43; Psalms 50, 73-83), or by the survivors of the rebellious Levite Korah such as Samuel's grandson Heman (1 Chronicles 6:33-38; Psalms 42, 44-49, 84-85, 87-88). A few major prophets were sons of Levi – like Jeremiah, a descendant of Eli (Jeremiah 1:1; cf. 1 Kings 2:26-27), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:3); even Elijah might've been a Levite.³⁸ Some of the minor prophets – Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah – were, one tradition held, from the tribe of Simeon.³⁹ The priestly line of Phinehas through Zadok led to many high priests and to Ezra, who inspired the returnees from Babylon (Ezra 7:1-5). And it was Levites whose zeal for God's Law fought the Greeks to win (temporary) independence for Judaea (1 Maccabees 2:1-5).

But then things went downhill. One Jewish critic accused the sons of Levi of “teaching commandments which are opposed to God's just ordinances..., exalting yourselves... contrary to the commands of God. With contempt and laughter, you will deride the sacred things.” It sounds a lot like Jesus' critique of the religious leaders of his day, doesn't it (Matthew 15:3-9)? The same critic feared the sons of Levi “shall wander astray..., set aside the Law and nullify the words of the Prophets.... You persecute just men, and you hate the pious.”⁴⁰ And that became clearest when the leading Levite priests conspired with the scribes to halt Jesus' influence (Mark 11:18), and the Levite high priest Caiaphas personally put Jesus on trial (Matthew 26:57-58). Early Christians read Jacob's words to Simeon and Levi as a prophecy of “the persecutors of the Lord,”⁴¹ the scribes and priests who “took counsel against the Lord Jesus,”⁴² who “savaged [Christ's] sinews by crucifixion by nails.”⁴³ It was this conspiring, they said, which horrified Jacob in advance, the assembly from which he distanced his honor.⁴⁴

But the New Testament recognizes plenty of Levite bright spots, too. John the Baptist was a Levite, the son of the priest Zechariah and his Levite wife Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-66); John fulfilled the Levite charge “to announce the one who is about to redeem Israel.”⁴⁵ Elizabeth was a kinswoman of Mary, so maybe Mary was herself partly descended from Levi. Also a Levite was Joseph of Cyprus, nicknamed Barnabas, one of the first great evangelists to the nations (Acts 4:36-37). Mark was Barnabas' cousin (Colossians 4:10); maybe he was also a Levite.⁴⁶ In medieval tradition, some thought Simon Peter was a son of Simeon while Zebedee, father of James and John, was a Levite,⁴⁷ others took Bartholomew for a Levite,⁴⁸ and some said Matthew was a Levite.⁴⁹

Jacob turns next to Judah, but let's skip ahead to some of the shorter messages, starting with his blessings on Asher and Naphtali, the younger sons of the two handmaids, who are, as a rule, contented followers.⁵⁰ “From Asher will be richness of bread, and he shall yield royal delicacies,” and “Naphtali is a doe let loose that gives beautiful words” (Genesis 49:20-21). People imagined Naphtali “light on [his] feet like a deer,” so that Jacob “appointed him for all missions and messages.”⁵¹ At the exodus, Naphtali was the sixth-biggest tribe; Asher was ninth (Numbers 1:41, 43), the last tribes to make offerings as the Tabernacle was dedicated (Numbers 7:72-83); both camped with Dan on the north side and brought up the very rear when Israel marched (Numbers 2:27-31). After forty years, Asher had grown to be fifth-biggest, while Naphtali had shrunk to be eighth (Numbers 26:47-50). They were also the final two tribes Moses blessed: “O Naphtali, sated with favor and full of the LORD's blessing, possess the sea and the south! Most blessed of sons be Asher; let him be the favorite of his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil..., and as your days, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:23-25).

So Asher was assigned coastal land in north Canaan (Joshua 19:24-31), “a fertile area of western Galilee,”⁵² and Naphtali was their neighbor on the east (Joshua 19:32-39); both tribes had to coexist with the Canaanites that they just couldn't drive out (Judges 1:31-33).⁵³ Until, that is, Deborah called a Naphtalite named Barak to lead Israel in war. Bashfully unused to leadership, he refused to go without her (Judges 4:4-10).⁵⁴ But Barak led his tribe Naphtali to victory over Canaan, though “Asher sat still at the coast of the sea, staying by his landings” (Judges 5:17). The son of a Naphtalite widow, Hiram, built the First Temple (1 Kings 7:14). As time passed, Asher and Naphtali became “thoroughly irreligious,”⁵⁵ so the Lord judged to “disperse [Naphtali] over the face of the whole earth,”⁵⁶ to scatter Asher so as to “not know [their] own lands, tribe, or language.”⁵⁷ But it can't have been total, because an elderly prophetess named Anna from the tribe of Asher was found in Jerusalem to praise God for the arrival of a Savior (Luke 2:36-38) – a Savior who spent most of his ministry in lands once belonging to the tribe of Naphtali (cf. Isaiah 9:1). For early Christians, Naphtali's blessing was a picture of the apostles as evangelists, let loose to run forth to make the beautiful words of the gospel known abroad,⁵⁸ while Asher showed them in their “duty to provide and distribute the bread of life..., food and drink for the saints.”⁵⁹ In the Middle Ages, the Ethiopians guessed Bartholomew was from Naphtali and Thomas was from Asher,⁶⁰ and the Syrians held Peter and Andrew as from Naphtali and Philip from Asher.⁶¹

Then there are Leah's last two sons, Issachar and Zebulun – the one she'd deemed a 'reward,' the other she took as a gift of grace (Genesis 30:17-20). On leaving Egypt, they were the fourth- and fifth-biggest tribes (Numbers 1:29-31), but after forty years, both had grown (Numbers 26:25-27). Moses blessed the two as one: “Rejoice, O Zebulun, in your going out, and Issachar, in your tents! They shall call peoples to the mountain; there they offer sacrifices of righteousness, for they suckle the abundance of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand” (Deuteronomy 33:18-19). Tradition cast Zebulun as a generous fisherman; Issachar, a farmer “living in integrity.”⁶² Each tribe was assigned a small territory under Asher and Naphtali (Joshua 19:10-23). Jacob's word to Issachar scolds them “for passively submitting to servitude as the price of peace with its neighbors.”⁶³ But Issachar later provided “men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32), so the rabbis took the sons of Issachar as dedicated students of the Scriptures;⁶⁴ they read into Jacob's blessing the notion that Issachar “bends his shoulders for the study of the Law,” while Zebulun supported and sustained Issachar's material needs.⁶⁵ In that, these two brother tribes – one sticking to his tents, the other going out to provide food – present a picture of the relationship Jacob and Esau should have had.⁶⁶

Each produced a minor judge: Issachar's Tola, Zebulun's Elon (Judges 10:1-2; 12:11-12). Some traditions said the prophet Hosea was of Issachar;⁶⁷ rabbis guessed Jonah was of Zebulun.⁶⁸ But, like others “abandoning the commands of the Lord,” they were “scattered among the nations.”⁶⁹ Centuries later, in the land once Zebulun's, a new town was built: Nazareth. For “in the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun..., but in the latter time he has made glorious... Galilee” (Isaiah 9:1-2). And just over the border into Issachar, Jesus was transfigured between Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:28-35).⁷⁰ Early Christians saw in Issachar's blessing a prefigurement of Christ bowing his shoulder to the cross, laboring for our salvation to bring us to a good land of heavenly rest.⁷¹ And in Zebulun's, they saw churches spread “in the world like widely accessible ports,”⁷² which “stand to meet the afflicted... where they can beach their wind-battered vessels” from life's storms.⁷³ Medieval Ethiopians put Matthew in Issachar and Philip in Zebulun,⁷⁴ the Irish figured 'Iscariot' came from Issachar,⁷⁵ and the Syrians took Matthew and Bartholomew for Issacharites but James and John for Zebulunites.⁷⁶

That clears the way for the longest blessing of all: Joseph's. He's Jacob's best-loved son, charming and diligent, a deeply emotional man of ambitious dreams who doesn't always account for long-term consequences but who thrives when he plays second-fiddle in a master's house.⁷⁷ Jacob compares him to a young wild donkey (or vine?) at a well and a spring (or wall?). Assailed by “the masters of arrows,” Joseph's “bow remains unmoved, the arms of his hands were made agile...” (Genesis 49:22-23). Overall, the picture screams for comparison to Ishmael, proclaimed at the well to be “a wild donkey of a man..., everyone's hand against him” (Genesis 16:7-12); God being with him, Ishmael became an archer and married an Egyptian wife like Joseph would (Genesis 21:20-21) – the irony being that it was Ishmaelites who ferried Joseph to slavery (Genesis 37:28; 39:1)!⁷⁸

But Joseph was helped in all his trials “by the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, from the name of the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel” (Genesis 49:24). Jacob's remembering “the stone” at Bethel, house of “the God who has shepherded me all my days” (Genesis 28:22; 48:15).⁷⁹ He appeals to “the El of your father who will help you, and Shaddai who will bless you with blessings from heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath” (Genesis 49:24-25). After years of walking in El Shaddai's promises, Jacob aims to pass such potent blessings on to his beloved son. But this “entire blessing is more natural than political – a blessing for fertility and plenty, not for rule.”⁸⁰ Jacob sees that it isn't Joseph who can lead the way of Israel. “May they be on the head of Joseph,” Jacob prays, “and on the brow of the consecrated one of his brothers” (Genesis 49:26). Instead of crowning Joseph, Jacob summons him to be the 'consecrated one' – the 'Nazirite.'⁸¹ It's ironic, since Nazirites by law couldn't cut their hair until the vow was ended (Numbers 6:5), while Joseph, in Egyptian style, shaves it off daily (Genesis 41:14). Experiencing true blessing requires Joseph to separate himself from his Egyptian ways.

The chapter we leapfrogged explained why Joseph's the ancestor of not one but two tribes, since Jacob adopted his sons Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:5). At the exodus, Joseph's group was second-biggest, though his tribes individually were tenth and twelfth (Numbers 1:33-35). Ephraim and Manasseh camped on the west side of the Tabernacle and marched third in Israel (Numbers 2:18-24). At the border of promise, Manasseh's scout Gaddi was fearful, but not so the one from Ephraim. His name was Hoshea – or, as Moses renamed him, Joshua (Numbers 13:8, 16). After forty years, Ephraim had shrunk to second-smallest, while Manasseh had seen the most growth of any (Numbers 26:34-37); yet Moses, repeating Jacob's blessing, still saw Ephraim in the lead (Deuteronomy 33:13-17), and it was the Ephraimite Joshua he ordained as his successor (Deuteronomy 34:9).

The tribe of Manasseh split, some east of Jordan in Gilead and Bashan, the rest crossing over to settle around Shechem (Joshua 13:29-31; 17:7-13). Ephraim settled south of them, in the heart of Canaan (Joshua 16:5-10). After Joshua's death at the same age as his forefather Joseph (Joshua 24:39), Manasseh produced judges like the timid Gideon and the shortsighted Jephthah (Judges 7:23-24; 12:4-7).⁸² Tragically, a secessionist assembly proclaimed a man from Ephraim named Jeroboam as king; Jeroboam made golden calves (1 Kings 12:20-33), as “Ephraim... was determined to go after filth” (Hosea 5:11). The prophet Micah might himself have been an Ephraimite,⁸³ but he proclaimed Israel's hope lay in Judah (Micah 5:2). Many from Ephraim and Manasseh moved south to Judah (2 Chronicles 15:9); and even after the northerners were deported and their territories resettled (2 Kings 17:6-41), it's likely many were left behind;⁸⁴ from their mix with pagan settlers descended the Samaritans, who laid claim to the heritage of Joseph despite Jewish opposition (John 4:12).⁸⁵ Jesus ministered gladly to Samaritans (John 4:36), and in the apostolic era “Samaria... received the word of God” (Acts 8:14).⁸⁶ While medieval Ethiopic tradition took the apostle Jude Thaddeus for a descendant of Joseph,⁸⁷ the Syrians said the same of Simon the Zealot (Ephraimite) and James the Lesser (Manassite),⁸⁸ while the Irish went for broke and took Simon the Zealot, James the Lesser, and Matthew for Manassites and Thomas for an Ephraimite!⁸⁹

Now we can loop back to Jacob's fourth son, an obvious contrast to his three older brothers.⁹⁰ Punning on his name, which means 'Praise,' Jacob tells Judah that the name fits since “your brothers will praise you..., your father's sons will bow down before you” (Genesis 49:8). It must've been most shocking when the twelve heard that, since that's what Joseph had dreamt would be his destiny (Genesis 37:9-10)!⁹¹ In the exodus, Judah was the biggest of the tribes, making the first offering at the Tabernacle dedication and leading the camp on the east side (Numbers 1:27; 2:3-9; 7:12). Marching first every time, Judah “blazes the trail... for the entire nation.”⁹² Aaron married their chief Nahshon's sister, so that every priest of Israel would also descend from Judah (Exodus 6:23). Another leading son of Judah was Hur, who helped Aaron hold up Moses' arms to make the sign of the cross over Joshua's battle with Amalek (Exodus 17:12); and Hur's grandson Bezalel was singled out by God to oversee the building of the Tabernacle (Exodus 38:22), even to personally handcraft the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 37:1-9). Their scout, Caleb, led the way in encouraging the people of Israel, and lived to become chief of Judah (Numbers 13:30; 34:19); his nephew Othniel was Israel's very first judge (Judges 3:7-11).

Through all this time, the people of Judah – settling in southern Canaan west of the Dead Sea (Joshua 15:1-12) – earned a reputation for persistence, boldness, bravery, and brains, tempted by pretty faces but usually willing to confess and repent.⁹³ Most famously, among the sons of Judah was a shepherd boy named David (Ruth 4:18-22), anointed first as king of his tribe and then over a unified Israel (2 Samuel 2:4; 5:3). For Judah had been “destined to be king in Israel” by Jacob's blessing.⁹⁴ Ultimately, God “did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but he chose the tribe of Judah,” and within it “he chose David his servant... to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance” (Psalm 78:67-71). From him “were descended the other kings” – Solomon and Rehoboam, Uzziah and Hezekiah, Josiah and Jeconiah and the rest – who were thus “all members of the tribe of Judah.”⁹⁵

Jacob promised that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until” – until what (Genesis 49:10)? This line's been read so many different ways: 'until Shiloh comes,'⁹⁶ 'until he comes to Shiloh,'⁹⁷ 'until tribute comes to him,'⁹⁸ 'until what has been stored up for him might come,'⁹⁹ 'until he comes who is to be sent,'¹⁰⁰ 'until he comes to whom it belongs.'¹⁰¹ Even people in the Old Testament applied Jacob's words differently. The prophet Nathan, reading 'the rod will not depart from Judah,' warns David that if his sons fail, the blessing becomes a curse: while God's mercy “will not depart,” while the kingdom is “until forever,” still God “will chasten [the son of David] with the rod”; David's sin with Bathsheba makes Nathan even more sure that “punishment will not depart from your house until forever” (2 Samuel 7:14-16; 12:10).¹⁰² Two generations later, at the national breakup, the prophet Ahijah came from Shiloh to say that, though rule over Israel is out of Judah's hands, that won't be forever (1 Kings 11:39).¹⁰³ When even Judah's kingdom fell, Ezekiel re-read Jacob's words as a prophecy of Nebuchadnezzar, saying Judah's final prince should ditch his crown since Judah's kingship was only “until he comes whose is the judgment, and I will give it to him” (Ezekiel 21:26-27).¹⁰⁴ But once Babylon fell and David's descendant Zerubbabel was made governor of Judah, Zechariah was reinvigorated with hope that the scepter had never left Judah at all, and never would until they at last beheld their “king coming to you..., on a donkey and on a colt, the son of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9).¹⁰⁵

It was at last understood that Jacob foresaw that “the rule would not cease for [Judah's] posterity,”¹⁰⁶ not until all these things were fulfilled. Even when it seemed all was lost, God promised to “raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king” (Jeremiah 23:5); Jacob's blessing pointed to an ultimate King from Judah in the end.¹⁰⁷ In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jacob's blessing promises “the coming of the Messiah of Righteousness, the shoot of David, for to him and his seed has been given the covenant of kingship of his people for everlasting generations.”¹⁰⁸ Explanations read in the synagogues rephrased Jacob as saying that “the ruler shall never depart from the House of Judah... until the Messiah comes, to whom belongs the kingdom, and him the nations will obey.”¹⁰⁹ And “it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah” (Hebrews 7:14).

So early Christians latched on to Jacob's blessing as a prophecy that the earthly Jewish kingdom had lasted just until the arrival of a Messiah in whom the Gentiles would hope.¹¹⁰ Jesus, they said, was the promised king from Judah, and “all predecessors were but guardians in the post.”¹¹¹ In that light, “the blessing conferred on Judah is somewhat mystical, foretelling to us the whole story of Christ.”¹¹² Jacob said, “Judah is a lion's cub; from the torn prey, my son, you have gone up” (Genesis 49:9), resonating with Judah saving Joseph from being “torn” (Genesis 44:28). But in Greek, “from a shoot, my son, you went up,”¹¹³ and Christians heard there about the virgin birth.¹¹⁴ “He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lion's cub; who dares rouse him?” (Genesis 49:9) – they saw here Jesus stooping down in death, to be roused by God alone.¹¹⁵ No wonder John heard that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah... has conquered” (Revelation 5:5), “saving them that believe, but trampling down the adversary.”¹¹⁶ And “because the lion has conquered, he will come to judge the living and the dead.”¹¹⁷

Jacob spoke of Judah “binding his donkey to the vine, and to the choice vine his donkey's son” (Genesis 49:11), words reminding us of Joseph 'bound' in prison to hear a dream of a vine (Genesis 40:3-10).¹¹⁸ On the surface, it's a blessing of such abundance that Judah can afford to not care if a donkey chews up a precious vine.¹¹⁹ But Christians, reading spiritually in light of Zechariah's prophecy, saw here Jesus sending his disciples to fetch “a donkey tied, and a colt with her,” which he rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:2-11).¹²⁰ Jesus is the Choice Vine, binding onto himself both Jews and Gentiles.¹²¹ “He washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes” (Genesis 49:11). This “heralded beforehand the suffering he was going to endure,”¹²² “spattering his body with his own blood,”¹²³ all “to wash away the sin which was ours,”¹²⁴ through giving us “the wine of the chalice of the blood of the Lord.”¹²⁵ As for his wine-sparkling eyes and milk-white teeth (Genesis 49:12), John beheld one whose “eyes are like a flame of fire..., clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God” (Revelation 19:12-13),¹²⁶ for the prophets and apostles saw with joy,¹²⁷ and declare “the perfect clarity of their teaching” like “gleaming white teeth.”¹²⁸

That leaves just three tribes, two of which are Dan and Gad, the eldest sons of the handmaids. Gad's is short and very punny, while Dan's is curious: words about judgment, a snakebite, and a prayer for salvation (Genesis 49:16-18). Dan shows real potential whenever paired with Judah, as when God chooses the Danite Oholiab to help the Judahite Bezalel equip Israel for worship; he made the Tabernacle fabric and the priestly vestments (Exodus 38:23). Dan was the second-biggest tribe after Judah, leading the rear-marching camp (Numbers 1:39; 2:25-31), but it was a Danite who cursed the sacred name of the LORD and so had to be stoned to death by the direct commandment of God himself (Leviticus 24:10-16).

Moses compared Gad and Dan to lions, as Jacob had to Judah (Deuteronomy 33:20-22). Dan was assigned land near the Philistines (Judges 19:40-44), though they weren't terribly successful in settling it (Judges 1:34), despite the most famous Danite being Samson, that superhuman whose law-breaking vengeance was God's imperfect tool (Judges 13:24). Many ancient Jews thought he was the focus of Jacob's blessing: “Let the terror of this man... chosen... out of the house of Dan be cast upon the nations, and let his slaughter of the Philistines prevail.”¹²⁹ But when the southern turf of Dan was “lost to them” (Joshua 19:45), they pillaged their way to the far north, setting up an idol shrine at a city they burned and seized (Judges 18:1-31). They became “estranged from their inheritance, from the race of Israel, and from their patrimony.”¹³⁰ Living along caravan routes, subtle and dangerous as a snake, they likely survived largely through highway robbery.¹³¹ The Old Testament tended to link Dan to “unfaithfulness..., cowardice..., and foreign invasion.”¹³² They were prone to intermarry with neighboring pagans,¹³³ and they happily hosted one of Jeroboam's golden calves (1 Kings 12:29-30).

In Jewish tradition, the exiled tribes of Gad and Dan were dedicated to “persecuting those who were keeping the Law,” and a member of one or the other tribe was said to have murdered Ezekiel, “for they opposed him all the days of his life.”¹³⁴ Another tradition added that “in the last days,” the sons of Dan would “defect from the Lord,” and then, “to the extent that you abandon the Lord, you will live by every evil deed..., motivated to all wickedness by the spirits of deceit among you.... Your prince is Satan.”¹³⁵ In the New Testament, when St. John lists the tribes' sealed, the one and only tribe dropped from the list is, you guessed it, Dan (Revelation 7:4-8) – and medieval tradition generally took Judas to be a member of the tribe of Dan (or, sometimes, Gad).¹³⁶

Seeing this, Christians starting in the second century began speculating that the tribe of Dan was maybe left out for a good reason: that there'd be one more Danite with a big role to play.¹³⁷ Given Jacob's prophecy echoing the Serpent in the Garden (cf. Genesis 3:14-15),¹³⁸ Christians supposed that a “deadly serpent will emerge from the tribe of Dan.”¹³⁹ Given Dan's counterfeiting of the 'Lion of Judah' in the words of Moses, Christians said that “as the Savior has been born out of the tribe of Judah, so also Antichrist will be born out of the tribe of Dan”¹⁴⁰ – “the Son of Destruction... from the tribe of Dan in accordance with the prophecy of Jacob,”¹⁴¹ “a cruel judge and savage tyrant who will... try to throw down those who walk in the way of truth.”¹⁴² But though this “one opposing and exalting himself above everything called god or worshipped, so as to seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God,” yet the true Lion of Judah will “abolish with the breath of his mouth and nullify him by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-8).

That leaves just one tribe to go. “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring the prey and in the evening dividing the spoil” (Genesis 49:27). All but the smallest tribe when leaving Egypt, camping with the other Rachel tribes west of the Tabernacle, they grew over forty years to become seventh-largest tribe (Numbers 1:37; 2:22-23; 26:41). They provided Israel their second judge: the left-handed Ehud, “quiet and unassuming..., sly and devious,” who stealthily assassinated the Moabite king Eglon (Judges 3:15-30).¹⁴³ The Benjaminites of Gibeah later took the story of Sodom as a how-to guide; their tribal leaders refused to surrender the guilty and instead launched a civil war against the other tribes (Judges 20:12-14); nearly wiped out, they were barely saved by Shechem-style marriage-by-abduction (Judges 21). A few generations down the line, Samuel anointed a young Benjaminite from Gibeah to be the king Israel cried for. Saul was at first so reluctant that he hid in a pile of luggage (1 Samuel 10:22); soon, though, he was addicted to royal power. Struggling to take responsibility for his own actions, he gradually frittered away his moral authority.¹⁴⁴ His son Ishbaal, succeeding him, was “weak and easily controlled,” while his grandson Mephibaal proved passive, peaceful, and forgiving.¹⁴⁵

That's one side of Benjamin's tribe; the other is that Moses had given them a blessing of nearness to God: “The beloved of the LORD dwells in safety by him; he surrounds him all day long and dwells between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33:12). They were assigned territory between Judah and Joseph (Joshua 18:11-20), and after the fall of Shiloh, it was Benjaminites who recovered the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 7:1-2; cf. Joshua 18:28). Later, the Ark was brought into another city in Benjamin's territory: Jerusalem (Judges 1:21; 2 Samuel 6:1-15). The Temple “was built in the portion of Benjamin,”¹⁴⁶ for “in his territory shall the Divine Presence dwell.”¹⁴⁷ So “thanks to his promixity to God's temple, Benjamin enjoyed the benefit of God's constant attention.”¹⁴⁸

Though God remained with descendants of Benjamin like Mordecai and his cousin Esther (Esther 2:5-7), by far history's most famous Benjaminite was Saul – and this time I mean the one from Tarsus, not Gibeah. Saul – St. Paul – confesses to being “of the tribe of Benjamin” (Philippians 3:5; Romans 11:1). So, naturally, early Christians saw him as the focus of Jacob's blessing here, that “Paul would arise of the tribe of Benjamin, a ravening wolf devouring until the morning..., who in his early life would harass the Lord's flock as a persecutor, and then at evening would distribute food, that is..., would feed Christ's sheep,”¹⁴⁹ “enlightening all the nations with new knowledge.”¹⁵⁰ He became “a wolf to the wolves and snatched all souls away from the Evil One,”¹⁵¹ and now “his divisions of food are chanted everywhere” in the churches of God!¹⁵²

Now, why does all this tribal stuff matter? Simply this: the prophets assured their people that, despite the exile and dispersion, God's eye remained “on all the tribes of Israel” (Zechariah 9:1), even those “ten tribes” they feared had been lost “beyond the Euphrates.”¹⁵³ For “are we not all, the twelve tribes, bound by one captivity?”¹⁵⁴ When the Messiah reigns, “a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost... will come and worship the LORD” (Isaiah 27:13). Though “the sons of Israel will dwell many days without king or prince or sacrifice..., the sons of Israel shall return... to the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days” (Hosea 3:5).

So Jews expected that, in the last days, the Messiah would summon back “the ten tribes” to their ancestral home.¹⁵⁵ Jesus told his apostles that, “in the regeneration” of all things, they'd “sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28); and James addressed his letter to Christians from (at least in principle) “the twelve tribes in the Dispersion” (James 1:1). When Ezekiel dreamt of the promised land, he saw the twelve tribes living in neat horizontal strips above and below a new temple, and the square city around that temple would have three gates in each wall, one for each of Jacob's twelve sons (Ezekiel 48:1-35).¹⁵⁶

The Bible closes with St. John's sweet vision of “the holy city, New Jerusalem,” grander and more glorious than Ezekiel could've handled seeing it (Revelation 21:2). This city has “the glory of God” and “a great high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and on the gates, the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed” (Revelation 21:11-12). These are the gates, ever-open, into which the glory of all nations may pass into the City of God (Revelation 21:25-26); and John had earlier seen, under the figure of those sealed from the twelve tribes, “the innumerable multitude of the whole Church,” all who believed through the twelve apostles' gospel.¹⁵⁷ Each of these tribal legacies is preserved eternally, because it takes many kinds to make a people; the kingdom of the Lord takes all kinds indeed – “there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone” (1 Corinthians 12:6). Thanks be to God, come on in! “Blessed are those who wash their robes..., that they may enter the city by the gates” of these twelve tribes, in Jesus' name! Amen.

Settling Goshen

When we left them last week, Jacob's family had finally gotten back in touch. Joseph, sold into slavery by his brothers twenty-two years earlier, has embraced them and expressed a desire to reconnect with his long-lost father. “Hurry and ascend to my father and say to him, 'Thus says your son Joseph: God has set me as lord of all Egypt! Come down to me; don't delay! You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me'” (Genesis 45:9-10). Goshen was apparently a region of the east Nile Delta, a “stretch of wetlands along the easternmost of the Nile's distributaries.”¹ As one of the first parts of Egypt you'd reach coming down through the desert from Canaan, it was already a popular area for new arrivals.² “I'll support you there..., lest you and your house and all that's yours come to poverty..., for there are still five years of famine” (Genesis 45:11). It's a tougher time than Jacob and his sons had thought; Joseph has foreknowledge that this has been just the tip of the pyramid. Nobody so far has asked, “Why?” But it all started with: “Cursed is the ground for your sake! In toil shall you eat of it all the days of your life.... By the sweat of your nose shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken” (Genesis 3:17-19). Famines – even this one – are “a prime instance of the curse.”³ The curse began a couple chapters into the book of Genesis; now it climaxes as we near the end.

As Joseph talks with his brothers, meanwhile word reaches the palace that these men who've arrived are, in fact, the brothers of Joseph. That “was good in the eye of Pharaoh and in the eye of his servants” (Genesis 45:16), Joseph being deeply popular in palace circles. Pharaoh's liked and trusted Joseph for nine years now; given that Joseph views himself as something of “a father to Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:8), it might be that this Pharaoh is actually somewhat younger than Joseph.⁴ As Joseph has just dictated a message for his brothers to give their father, Pharaoh now summons Joseph and dictates a message for Joseph to give his brothers.⁵

Joseph tells his brothers to “hurry and bring my father down here” (Genesis 45:13), and Pharaoh similarly asks that they “load your beasts and depart, go to the land of Canaan, and take your father and your houses, and come to me” – it's less than clear if the 'me' is Joseph or Pharaoh (Genesis 45:17). Joseph assures his father that “I'll support you” (Genesis 45:11); Pharaoh says, “I'll give you the good of the land of Egypt, and you'll eat of the fat of the land” (Genesis 45:18). So far, it's a pretty nice match. But there's a big difference still. Joseph's original invitation is for Israel to come down to Egypt and bring “your flocks and your herds and all that you have” (Genesis 45:10). Pharaoh commands that Joseph's brethren “let not your eye pity your stuff, for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours” (Genesis 45:20). Where Joseph invites the flocks and herds, Pharaoh makes no mention of animals, just “your little ones and your wives.” Where Joseph mentions the family's moveable property – tents, clothes, pots and pans, all that – Pharaoh directly (and unknowingly) contradicts him. Pharaoh says they can just abandon those in Canaan, because they'll gain better Egyptian goods on arrival. As they come, Pharaoh pictures them coming as blank slates ready to be rechiseled in hieroglyphics – ready to be acculturated, assimilated, absorbed by this new Egypt with arms wide open to the world on Egypt's terms.⁶

Pharaoh authorizes Joseph's brothers to take wagons in order to transport this anticipated human cargo (Genesis 45:19). “And the sons of Israel did so, and Joseph gave them wagons according to the mouth of Pharaoh” (Genesis 45:21). We heard last Sunday, at the end of a very long story, how Jacob at first couldn't believe what his sons were telling him; but, once he'd heard Joseph's message as they relayed it and “saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob came to life; and Israel said, 'It is enough: Joseph my son is still alive! I will go and see him before I die'” (Genesis 45:27-28). He's been talking about death a lot lately, but for now he's got something vital to live for. He just needs to go and see.

So “Israel lifted up with all that was his” – a clue that he hasn't decided to leave everything behind, as Pharaoh wants – “and he came to Beersheba” (Genesis 46:1). This Well of the Oath is where Abraham cut a covenant with Abimelech (Genesis 21:31-32), where Isaac heard the LORD and built an altar (Genesis 26:23-25), where Jacob himself grew up and where he saw his mom for the very last time (Genesis 27:10). So here he's come yet again, to this familiar southern limit of Canaan, and – no doubt on his dad's altar – “he sacrificed sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac” (Genesis 46:1). Later Jews speculated that Jacob paused there on Pentecost and, remembering his dream where God had placed such a premium on bringing him back to the land from Aram (Genesis 28:15), “he was afraid to go down into Egypt,” and considered asking Joseph to come meet him there in Canaan instead.⁷ His own father Isaac had been forbidden by a direct revelation to ever go down to Egypt at all (Genesis 26:2). Who's to say that isn't a law binding on Jacob now? And if they go, will they be risking their claim on this land?⁸ Might they forever “remain in Egypt and thus bring the promise to nought?”⁹

If Israel's hoping that this spot where his dad was reassured by the God of Isaac is a place where Israel can get a similar comfort and guidance, his hope doesn't disappoint him. That night, in a vision in the sleepy darkness, a voice urgenly calls for him: “Jacob, Jacob!” – the same voice that had called from heaven to the mountain, “Abraham, Abraham!” (Genesis 22:11). Now as then, the hearer responded, “Here am I,” ready and receptive (Genesis 46:2). The voice in the night identifies himself as “the El, the God of your father,” and tells Israel, “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt” (Genesis 46:3). What was forbidden to Isaac isn't forbidden to Israel. Isaac's just wasn't the right time. God had pledged, long ago, to Abraham that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you..., so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2); and now, the voice tells Israel, Egypt is the forge where it's to happen: “for into a great nation will I make you there” (Genesis 46:1).

God has spoken. We won't hear him go on the record again for centuries, until he breaks his deafening silence by calling out, “Moses, Moses!” (Exodus 3:4). Awaiting that far-off name, “Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried their father and their little ones and the wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to carry him” (Genesis 46:5). Before the revelation, Jacob saw “wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him” (Genesis 45:27); now, they're Pharaoh-sent. But, bucking Pharaoh's script, “they also took their livestock and their acquisitions which they'd acquired in the land of Canaan, and they came into Egypt” (Genesis 46:6).

While on the way, Israel had dispatched the son he trusted best – none other than Judah, who'd proven himself through Benjamin's safe return – to run on ahead, to visit Joseph one-on-one and arrange for a rendezvous with the family, not at Joseph's house, but in this nearer borderland. “He sent Judah before his face to Goshen, to point out before his face to Goshen; and they came into the land of Goshen. And Joseph harnessed his chariot and ascended, to meet Israel his father, to Goshen” (Genesis 46:28-29). Joseph's eagerness to see his father, to hear his father's voice, can hardly be contained. Joseph is so proud of the man he's become, and wants Jacob to be proud of him, too. It's an utterly human instinct.

So we read that, there in Goshen, Joseph “appeared to him” (Genesis 46:29). Throughout the Old Testament, this phrase, 'he appeared to him,' never has a human subject except here. So far it's always been, “The LORD appeared to Abram” (Genesis 12:7), “God appeared to Jacob” (Genesis 35:9) – and now it's used of Joseph? Well, that fits with his insistence that his brothers “tell my father all my glory in Egypt” (Genesis 45:13). As he rides up in his large, stately chariot, wearing finest linens and loaded with the purest gold adornments, Joseph's aiming to manifest his glory like an Egyptian god, awe-inspiring and radiant.¹⁰ But no sooner does the aspiring deity manifest his glory to his father than he hugs him tight and, in the sight of his brothers and sisters-in-law and nephews, he breaks down into extended sobs. It's a touching scene, but not much of a divine appearance. You'll notice that we read “no reciprocal show of emotion on Jacob's part,” no hint that he also cries on Joseph's neck – can he recognize his lost son as found yet, or not?¹¹ But he says he can die at peace now that he's at least seen Joseph's face and has confirmed for a fact that the son reported dead is alive after all (Genesis 46:30).

A question hovers over the place they meet: now that they're together at last, does Jacob become a character in Joseph's Egyptian story, or does Joseph become a character in Israel's Abrahamic story – or is there a third way yet to be found?¹² Joseph sees that the whole family is there – we skip right past all the introductions of the youngsters to Uncle Joseph the Bald, the smoothest-skinned son of Jacob the Smooth (cf. Genesis 27:11) – and knows that there's work to be done. For all Joseph's bragging of being “ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:8), he needs to secure their right to settle in Goshen – and that means talking to Pharaoh, whose invitation had not only not named a district but had also avoided words like 'settle,' 'dwell,' or even 'sojourn.'

So Joseph lays out his plan. He'll first lay out the basic facts before Pharaoh, sharing essential information on the family's arrival and lifestyle and also explaining – perhaps a bit apologetically – that, despite Pharaoh's kind offer, they've hauled all their stuff down with them (Genesis 46:31-32). Next, Joseph predicts that Pharaoh will want to hear from some of them, and that Pharaoh will ask them about the work they do, despite Joseph having already told him. When he does, Joseph wants them to follow a very precise script: “Men of livestock have your servants been, from our youth and until now, both we and our fathers” (Genesis 46:33-34). He explains to them that upper-class Egyptians don't like to associate with anyone “shepherding a flock,” so while Joseph will admit that to Pharaoh before making the introductions, they'd best not repeat it when asked, but should simply lay claim to an unbroken family tradition of breeding livestock.¹³ This way, Pharaoh should let them “dwell in the land of Goshen,” an area ideal for that lifestyle, while staying on the fringes of society at a comfortable distance from most Egyptians. That'd be most agreeable to Pharaoh, and will also help them slow the process of being digested into Egypt. They'll “keep their distance from those who worship sheep.”¹⁴ But is that enough?

As chapter 47 opens, Joseph does as he said he would. He seeks an audience with Pharaoh and says much of what he said he'd say – almost. He'd told them he'd say that the arrivals were “my brothers and the household of my father” (Genesis 46:31), but he mentions only “my father and my brothers,” as if confining the group to a smaller size (Genesis 47:1). He told them he'd say they “have come to me” (Genesis 46:31), but he actually just says that they “have come” and are presently in Goshen (Genesis 47:1). Most pivotally, while Joseph follows through on admitting that his family's brought “their flocks and their herds and all that's theirs,” he backs down from using that dreaded word 'shepherd' (Genesis 47:1). Then, “from among his brothers, he took five men” – likeliest to leave a decent impression¹⁵ – and these men “he presented to the face of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:2).

Pharaoh follows the script unknowingly but perfectly. He asks the men exactly what Joseph had guessed he'd ask them: “What is your work?” But with Joseph having gone off-script, so do his brothers. Literally the first word out of their mouth is 'shepherd'! “Shepherding flocks, your servants are, both we and also our fathers” (Genesis 47:3).¹⁶ Then, after an awkward pause, they add: “To sojourn in the land we have come, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for heavy is the famine in the land of Canaan.” They leave the impression they just want to ride out the famine where there's some pastureland left. “And now please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen,” they plead (Genesis 47:4). Their words manage to assure Pharaoh that “they have no political interests or ambitions,” and would be content to be unobtrusive guests at the edge of the kingdom.¹⁷

Pharaoh doesn't answer the brothers, doesn't say one word to them. Instead, he speaks straight to Joseph. What does he say? “Your father and your brothers have come to you.” That makes them your problem, Joe.¹⁸ “The land of Egypt is before your face,” at your disposal. So, by all means, “in the best of the land, settle your father and your brothers; let them settle in the land of Goshen,” as you've hinted and they've asked (Genesis 47:5-6). They're welcome to settle down there – but only because they're blood relatives of Joseph, who has Pharaoh's continuing esteem.¹⁹ Pharaoh even, surprisingly, tells Joseph that “if you know any among them to be men of skill, set them as princes of livestock over what's mine!” (Genesis 47:6). It's a fitting offer, given that Asiatics like them often got “involved in cattle administration or herding in Egypt,”²⁰ but if any are found fit to do this, they'd be low-level “officers of the crown” and have a sturdier legal standing.²¹

We've skipped over, thus far, everyone's favorite surprise when reading the Bible: a census! There's a listing of the members of Jacob's clan taking up a big chunk in the middle of chapter 46. It's not only a dizzying batch of names, it's not easy to get the math to line up like it's supposed to. The names don't all match other copies of this same list in Numbers and Chronicles. It's got some people in it who can't be there. For example, Judah can't be older than forty-five, and his sons Er and Onan grew up and died out before his twin boys Perez and Zerah were even conceived, so they should be toddlers when carted into Egypt – yet this list gives Perez his two sons awhile (Genesis 46:12). The list gives Benjamin ten sons (Genesis 46:21), but Moses says later that a few of them are actually grandsons (Numbers 26:40) – but, either way, Benjamin's in his mid-twenties, so ten sons is a tough stretch anyway! Ultimately, St. Augustine commented here that “all these things, which seem insoluble, undoubtedly have an important purpose; but whether they can all be literally consistent..., I do not know.”²²

But step back from the names, and maybe we can see the bigger picture. The conclusion of this little census is that “all the souls of the house of Jacob who came to Egypt were seventy” (Genesis 46:27). That must have meant something near and dear to the Israelites, because the Bible's next book opens the way the census does here and promptly posits that “all the souls who went out from the thigh of Jacob were seventy souls” (Exodus 1:3). Moses later preaches that “with seventy souls your fathers went down to Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:22). It mattered even to Stephen in the New Testament, though his Greek Bible had different numbers (Acts 7:14).²³ Why? Remember that the other year, we looked at the tenth chapter of Genesis, which represented the nations of the known world as a family tree descending from Noah's sons. And how many nations did Jews count as they read Genesis 10? Seventy.²⁴ So here, at the tail end of Genesis, Israel's family is being shaped as the seed of a new world, an Abraham-shaped world, bursting onto the scene and “set among the seventy nations.”²⁵

If the buried secret of chapter 46 is this census, there's a secret in chapter 47, too, and it's domestic policy of the kind you might hear about on C-SPAN. We've been skipping mostly past Joseph's way of handling the crisis he was put in office to address. Remember his original pitch to Pharaoh: first, there should be one “discerning and wise man” with plenary authority to coordinate the crisis response; second, under him should be “overseers of the land” who implement the plan at a regional level; third, during the first seven years, the overseers should mobilize the land for emergency preparedness and “gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and store up grain under the hand of Pharaoh, food in the cities, and let them guard it: it shall be the food as a supply to the land for the seven years of famine that will be in the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:32-36).

So, once Pharaoh put Joseph in charge, what did Joseph do? He went all over Egypt and, since the seven years of plenty were so lavish, “he gathered up all the food of these seven years... and he put the food in the cities; the food of the field in every city which surrounded them, he gave into its midst. And Joseph stored up grain like the sand of the sea, so much that he ceased to count it, as it couldn't be counted” (Genesis 41:46-49).

As the famine took hold in northeast Africa and southwest Asia, “in all the land of Egypt there was bread” at first (Genesis 41:54), but when private stockpiles were depleted and “all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all Egypt, 'Go to Joseph. Whatever he says to you, do!'” (Genesis 41:55). Joseph then became “the one who sold to all the people of the land,” who had authority to distribute the national grain reserve dispersed throughout all Egypt's cities (Genesis 42:6). As the one man in the land with near-exclusive control over the basic staples of existence during these years, one reader sees him “exercising his god-like power over life and death” in the way he deals with the people.²⁶

As Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, two years of the famine are past, and the third is soon to be underway, with four more to come (Genesis 45:6). By this point, “there was no bread in the land, for the famine was very heavy, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted from the face of the famine” (Genesis 47:13). It seems like a death sentence, certain to return all in Canaan and in Egypt to the ground whence they were formed from the first. The sweat running down their noses couldn't scratch up bread to feed their families. But in the face of this disaster, we read how “Joseph gave them bread,” that “he comforted them with bread” (Genesis 47:17). When all's said and done, Egypt as a whole speaks to Joseph with one voice, crying out to him, “You have sustained us alive!” (Genesis 47:25). It's language we haven't heard since God told Noah to bring into the ark living creatures “to sustain them alive” (Genesis 6:19). Egypt is hailing Joseph as the world's new Noah, who's preserved the seed of life through the disaster, making Egypt itself an ark of safety for all lands.²⁷

But maybe the devil's in the details. How's this sausage made? Joseph doesn't give bread; he sells it. Egyptians – like all the foreigners descending in desperation to their land – have to purchase grain from the government. So, during these earlier years of the famine, “Joseph collected all the silver that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain that they bought; and Joseph,” rather than embezzle this profit for his own ends, “brought the silver to the house of the Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:14). He's faithful and zealous on his boss's behalf, using his role “to further augment and consolidate Pharaoh's power.”²⁸ Then what? Time passes, and “the silver was spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan.” And so “all Egypt came to Joseph, saying, 'Provide us bread! Why should we die in front of you? For the silver has ceased'” (Genesis 47:15).

Here's the crucial moment. There's no more silver to collect – not at the high prices Joseph must have been able to charge for grain, now that he's got a food monopoly. Here are the starving people, without money, asking to be fed. He could distribute the bread freely, as an entitlement of citizenship or even just as human kindness. On the other hand, “a person who is able to exploit someone else's assets ceases to bother with his own.”²⁹ Trying to give grain freely by rationed amounts per person could give rise to black markets; anybody slipping through the cracks could starve.³⁰ And so Joseph makes a decision: no free lunches. Considering that all this grain was confiscated by the government from the Egyptian people in the first place, effectively Joseph's demanding that “the very farmers who produced and harvested the food buy back their own product.”³¹ So, without silver as a currency, he turns to a barter system with moveable property: “Provide your livestock, and I'll give it to you for your livestock, if the silver has ceased” (Genesis 47:16). And so “they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses and for the livestock of the flock and for the livestock of the herd and for the donkeys; and he comforted them with bread for all their livestock that year” (Genesis 47:17).

That year ended. But the famine didn't. In this next year, Egypt turned to Joseph yet again. Their rations were gone. They had no silver left, and now their livestock was all state property. Egypt laments, “Nothing remains before the face of my lord but our bodies and our ground! Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our ground? Buy us and our ground for bread, and we with our ground will be slaves to Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live and not die, and that the ground may not be desolate!” (Genesis 47:18-19).

This time, it was their suggestion; Joseph merely accepted their terms gladly. “Joseph bought all the ground of Egypt for Pharaoh, for Egypt sold every man his field,” not freely but “because the famine prevailed upon them; and the land became Pharaoh's” (Genesis 47:20), so as “to build up the stock of property which lay in the public domain.”³² The sole exception was that “the ground of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had a statutory ration from Pharaoh, and they ate the rations that Pharaoh gave them; on this basis, they didn't sell their grounds” (Genesis 47:22). As for the people, there are questions about what the original text said.³³ The Hebrew text passed down to us says that “he made them pass over into the cities from one end of the territory of Egypt to the other” by a population transfer (Genesis 47:21).³⁴ But some ancient copies apparently read instead that “the people he enslaved for himself as servants.”³⁵ So “he took possession of all the land for Pharaoh at the same time as he reduced all the Egyptians into slavery.”³⁶ Thus “freedom was taken away in all the land of Egypt,” so that Egypt “became the house of bondage” even to its own people.³⁷

It's an alarming picture, that the boy sold by his brothers into slavery could so easily allow his adopted nation to sell themselves into slavery. When similar policies were introduced at Jerusalem, so that fields were mortgaged and people sold into slavery to afford grain during a famine, Nehemiah was outraged and “brought charges against the nobles and the officials” (Nehemiah 5:1-7); what words might Nehemiah have for Joseph?³⁸ Some readers today worry that, in what seems like his “crafty, unforgiving leadership,”³⁹ Joseph “outpharaohs Pharaoh” as he “centralizes all ownership,”⁴⁰ as “the Egyptians must literally sacrifice all ownership of the means of production in order to survive,”⁴¹ as he “strips them of their dignity.”⁴² If God declared to Jacob that “in you and in your seed shall all the families of the ground be blessed” (Genesis 28:14), what does it mean when Joseph takes the ground away from the families of Egypt? Does he bless them, or break them... or both?

What's happening here is the transformation of Egypt into an anti-Israel.⁴³ In Egypt, the people sell themselves into slavery for generations; in Israel, one who sold himself into slavery would, in the seventh year at the latest, “go out free, for nothing” (Exodus 21:2). In Egypt, Joseph keeping the Egyptians alive authorized the statute; in Israel, the statutes are commanded “for our good all the days, that [God] might keep us alive” (Deuteronomy 6:24). In Egypt, the land is given up to Pharaoh, with the exception of the priests as the sole other landowners; in Israel, “no portion is given to the Levites in the land, but only cities to dwell in” (Joshua 14:4), for “it is Pharaoh who wishes his priests... to work at the cultivation of the soil, not of the soul.”⁴⁴ In Egypt, Pharaoh lays claim to a fifth of every harvest; in Israel, the LORD himself lays claim to simply a tenth (Leviticus 23:30).

At the same time the native Egyptians are surrendering silver, stock, soil, and self, how are things with Goshen's newest settlers? Quite well: Joseph engineered things to “cause them to live in considerable prosperity.”⁴⁵ Just before we heard that there was no bread in the land, we read that “Joseph sustained his father and his brothers and all the house of his father with bread, according to the mouth of the little one” (Genesis 47:12), possibly meaning that he assigns each individual a sufficient ration. Where the Egyptians go into slavery to afford bread, the first Israelite immigrants are given bread for free, courtesy of the Egyptian government.

Thus, “Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen, and they seized possession in it, and they were fruitful and they multiplied exceedingly” (Genesis 47:27). We'll hear the same thing early in the next book, that “the Sons of Israel were fruitful and teemed and multiplied and became very, very numerous, and the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). Back at Bethel, God had urged Jacob to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 35:11), as Isaac had prayed would happen (Genesis 28:3); but that was echoing God's commitment to make Abraham “exceedingly fruitful” (Genesis 17:6), which was a plan built on God's blessing on the sons of Noah that they “be fruitful and multiply and fill the land” (Genesis 9:1), which repeated God's blessing on humanity at the dawn of creation, that we “be fruitful and multiply and fill the land” (Genesis 1:28).⁴⁶ But notice that not once, in all of Genesis until now, have we explicitly heard fruitfulness come to fruition – we've heard blessings of the hopes of fruitfulness, encouragements to multiply and fill, but here it's become an accomplished fact.

So when we read that phrase again, we're thrown back to before the ground was cursed, before the ground was forfeit. You know, the word 'ground' has scarcely shown up at all since the days of Noah, and suddenly here, in this chapter, we get over 25% of the 'ground' in Genesis – twice as many uses as there were before the fall. Then, in Genesis 3, humanity evicted from the garden was sentenced to “slave for the ground from which he'd been taken” (Genesis 3:23). Now, forty-four chapters later, as Egyptians give themselves and their ground alike into slavery, Israel teems and swarms in Goshen like they're frolicking in Eden, as though Joseph's bread were tasty fruit from the tree of life. If Adam's so-called 'knowledge' brought a deadly curse onto the ground, Joseph has a wisdom from God that, at least in part, triumphs over the curse and leads to life.⁴⁷

And so “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years” (Genesis 47:28). The first five of those correspond to the final five years of famine; that means Jacob and his family stayed when the famine ended. They stayed as the Nile rose to restore the land to life, to let the Egyptians' seed become viable crops. Israel stays settled in the land of Goshen, because God has spoken. And during Jacob's last years and beyond, there are just two groups who aren't somehow slaves of the state: the priesthoods, and the Children of Israel. To the average Egyptian farmer, how might this look? He owes new taxes at every harvest, and has less than his father because he's had to sell everything just to survive those tough years. But that immigrant ghetto over yonder spent those same years getting fat off government handouts – eating for free the grain he grew in the good years and had to pay to taste. Now those foreigners continue exempt from these new taxes, while those like him whose ancestors have walked this land for millennia are at risk of losing their country? Well, something's got to be done!

Unwittingly, it seems like Joseph has created a reason for Egyptians to resent the Hebrews and has built the machinery of state oppression that, a few generations down the line, will be ready and available to aim at the Hebrews. See, eventually there'll rise “a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1:8). Famously, during this season of Egyptian history, significant parts of the country were taken over by pharaohs who weren't even Egyptian, whose parents were settlers from north of Canaan; the Egyptians dubbed them 'rulers of foreign lands.' This broke down the Middle Kingdom, and a New Kingdom couldn't begin until a ten-year-old prince from Waset came to power and, in his quarter-century reign as Ahmose, led a campaign to reconquer Lower Egypt from the 'rulers of foreign lands' and reunite Egypt again as one.⁴⁸ Ahmose or one of his successors would be a new king who knew not Joseph; Egyptian “dread in the face of the Sons of Israel” would express itself in hate and, using the power established here, would make them labor on the grand projects of the New Kingdom. Arguably, Joseph “set the scene for hundreds of years of suffering,”⁴⁹ having created “the conditions for the eventual bitter enslavement and oppression of his own people.”⁵⁰ Try as he might, Joseph's Goshen can't be Eden. It can only be a crucible for forging a nation for greater dreams by far (Genesis 15:12-16).

In the midst of this swirl of confusion, there's one key moment at the eye of the storm. Before the family settles fully in Goshen, “Joseph brought in Jacob his father and stood him before the face of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:7). Unlike Joseph's brothers, Jacob doesn't use 'lord' and 'servant' language as he speaks with the king of all Egypt; he certainly doesn't bow before Pharaoh.⁵¹ Jacob has no need to quake before this young man who takes himself for the earthly manifestation of a god; Israel has wrestled God in the dark, Israel has met God in visions of the night, and Israel – at Israel's best – will accept no imitations. Though Jacob at his advanced age is carried to and fro, he exits Pharaoh's presence at his own initiative, without asking permission, and under his own power, without seeking help. But before he goes, what does he do? He blesses Pharaoh (Genesis 47:10). Israel imposes a blessing onto the head of this friendly neighborhood god-king, so called. And “it is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior” (Hebrews 7:7). Israel, without bravado, simply blesses. He blesses Pharaoh king of Egypt, because Israel's called to bless. So bless Israel does, without compromise.

In Joseph we see a glimpse – however imperfect – of “the Lord Jesus, taking pity on the hungers of the world,”⁵² the “Christ who subjugates all things to himself by the gift of wheat.”⁵³ He gives more freely than Joseph could, and more abundantly than Joseph could – but the price is, yes, that, “having been set free from sin, we become slaves,” not of Pharaoh, but “of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). “What do we get from refusing to have such a master?” asked St. Augustine. “We shall only remain under the devil, and also suffer from the famine, and still not escape from the authority of our true Lord.”⁵⁴ Jesus goes straight not for our silver or stock or soil, but for our souls – he wants our heart, he wants our all, to be at his service. It's not because he wants to dominate us, but because he wants to liberate us. And he stakes his claim to us by feeding our lives on every word from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), and most fully by the Bread of Life on his altar (John 6:53).

The cross is steady as the world turns – that's the great saying.⁵⁵ The ways of this world aren't stable, any more than the conditions and policies of ancient Egypt. As we're sent into the world, we have to be careful – as Jacob was – not to become of it (John 17:14-16). We don't leave behind all we've been graced with, in expectation that the world has something better. Instead, we come and find our place where we can live as Christians in this Egypt, where we can put love into practice, where we can be disciples bearing fruit for God. Then we multiply; then we teem; then, from seventy souls, we become as the very sand beneath or stars above. Refusing to be co-opted, we nevertheless stay close enough to bring a blessing – to feed hungry bodies and hungry souls, to supply justice where once was none, to do mercy, to lift up, to sustain life where death lays claim to reign. This can be our Goshen – until all things are made new, and every hunger is satisfied for good, and the best of all heaven is held before us by the King of Kings, our Good Shepherd at last adored by all creation. Amen!