Genesis 49:1-33
November 10, 2019
preached by Ryan Bouton
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“It has always boggled my mind that so much of the Bible is poetry. God inspired this, and he did not have to do it this way… God can raise the dead by any means he pleases. He can waken dull hearts to the reality of his beauty any way he desires. And one of the ways he pleases to do it is by inspiring his spokesmen to write poetry.”

~John Piper (1946-present), American pastor and poet

“The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. ‘The Road Not Taken’ may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, ‘the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

~David Orr, The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong

“So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.”

~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.”

~Homer Simpson

“But when we, after having been reproved for our sins, repent, this result not only absorbs the curse which was felt at the beginning, but also proves that the Lord blesses us more by punishing us, than he would have done by sparing us. Hence it follows, that diseases, poverty, famine, nakedness, and even death itself, so far as they promote our salvation, may deservedly be reckoned blessings…”

~John Calvin (1509-1564), leader of the Protestant Reformation in Geneva

“Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.”

~Proverbs 27:5-6

Sermon Passage

Genesis 49:1-33 (ESV)

¹  Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

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;
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.
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,
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.
²² “Joseph is a fruitful bough,
a fruitful bough by a spring;
his branches run over the wall.
²³ The archers bitterly attacked him,
shot at him, and harassed him severely,
²⁴ yet his bow remained unmoved;
his arms  were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob
(from there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),
²⁵ by the God of your father who will help you,
by the Almighty 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.
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.”

²⁸ All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him. ²⁹ Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave… in the land of Canaan… ³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife, and there I buried Leah… ³³ When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.