"The blessing of Jacob": A brief study in Old Testament poetry

IN SEVERAL respects the recounting of Old Testa­ment history differs from that of regular history. Among these differences is the tend­ency of the Old Testament historian to interrupt the flow of history by inserting, on the occurrence of an especially significant event, a poetic composition as a sort of emotional overtone to the historic picture. Typical instances are "The Song of Moses and Miriam" (Exodus 15:1-21), which celebrates the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea; "The Song of Deborah" (Judges 5), which commemorated the de­feat of Sisera, captain of the army of Jabin, king of Canaan, at the hands of Deborah and Barak; and "The Blessing of Jacob," the subject of this study. These rhythmical interludes are of high poetic value. "The earliest as well as the most sublime of poetic utterances known to man," says Ellen G. White, "are found in the Scriptures."-Education, p. 159.

But unfortunately, as these poems appear in the King James Version and many of the other commonly used translations of the Bible, their artistic poetic values are not discovered by the general reader. In most instances they are hardly recognized as poetry and are skipped over lightly in the reading task.

Why? In the first place, the composition does not look like poetry. The English reader is accustomed to seeing poems printed in lines of pre-established length, often arranged in groups according to a stanza pattern, whereas in the Authorized Version there is no typographical difference between poetry and prose. Both are set in the form of verses, numbered to make textual reference convenient, with no attempt to represent poetic structure by typographical form. Further, to the English reader, accustomed to the regular recurrence of accent and rhyme in much English poetry, Bible poetry does not sound like poetry. Not until he recognizes the fundamental basis of Hebrew poetry, as different from that of the poetry with which he is most familiar, is the reader prepared to recognize the beauty of the poems in the Bible. The modern reader requires that poetry shall be printed in the accepted form so that it may read as poetry.

However, the great poetry requires that the form be appropriate to the poet's mes­sage. Employing the devices of modern ty­pography, the structure of "The Blessing of Jacob," appropriately couching the thought and helping to clarify the meaning, may be presented as follows (the arrangement is that of Moulton in The Modern Reader's Bible, but the text is that of the King James Version):

Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; And hearken unto Israel your father.

Reuben, thou art my firstborn,

My might, and the beginning of my strength;

The excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel;

Because thou wentest up to thy father's bed;

Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

Simeon and Levi are brethren;

Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

O my soul, come not thou into their secret; Unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou

united: For in their anger they slew a man,

And in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce;

And their wrath, for it was cruel:

I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise:

Thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies;

Thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

Judah is a lion's whelp:

From the prey, my son, thou art gone up: He stooped down, he couched as a lion,

And as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,

Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh come;

And unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine,

And his ass's colt unto the choice vine; He washed his garments in wine,

And his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine,

And his teeth white with milk.

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; And he shall be for an haven of ships; And his border shall be unto Zidon.

Issachar is a strong ass

Couching down between two burdens: And he saw that rest was good,

And the land that it was pleasant; And bowed his shoulder to bear,

And became a servant unto tribute.

Dan shall judge his people,

As one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way,

An adder in the path, That biteth the horse heels,

So that his rider shall fall backward.

I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.

Gad, a troop shall overcome him: But he shall overcome at the last.

Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield royal dainties.

Naphtali is a hind let loose: He giveth goodly words.

Joseph is a fruitful bough, Even a fruitful bough by a well;

Whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him,

And shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength,

And the arms of his hands were made strong By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob;

(From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee;

And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lieth under,

Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: The blessings of thy father have prevailed Above the blessings of my progenitors

Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph,

And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: In the morning he shall devour the prey. And at night he shall divide the spoil.

As has become apparent in this typographical arrangement, "The Blessing of Jacob" exhibits an over-all structure of great interest. The natural divisions are eleven, determined by the twelve tribes, Simeon and Levi being joined in one stanza. The whole composition, introduced by a couplet of general salutation and address, is divided into two parts, the dividing line between the two parts consisting of a pious exclamation, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord." Although seven tribes are included in the first part, and only five in the second, a sense of balance appears in assigning the weight of emphasis to the tribes of Judah and of Joseph in the first and second parts respectively. Each is preeminent above his fellows.

The rhythmic basis of the poem is an example of the fundamental metrical basis of Hebrew poetry: a balanced symmetry of form and sense known as parallelism, wherein clauses are arranged in pairs,* "like a sound and its echo." This rhythmic structure has been called the rhythm of thought, the rhythm of sense, rather than the rhythm of accent and of sound. It has been likened to "the rapid strokes as of alternate wings, the heaving and sinking as of the troubled heart." In its simplest form, poetic parallelism appears in a simple couplet (two lines) as in the salutation of the poem:

Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob;

And hearken unto Israel your father.

Spontaneous creation allows an occasional strengthening of one of the two lines by an additional parallel line, thus aug­menting the couplet to a three-line unit, as illustrated in the blessing of Zebulun, wherein the first line is strengthened:

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea;

And he shall be for an haven of ships;

And his border shall be unto Zidon;

and as illustrated in the blessing on Benjamin, wherein the second line of the couplet is strengthened: Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf:

In the morning he shall devour the prey, And at night he shall divide the spoil.

What was the occasion of the poem? It is a deathbed scene. Jacob, resting on his couch, surrounded by his sons, the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, speaks his final words of blessing and counsel. This is his swan-song. His sons and their descendants will cherish its message as long as the commonwealth of Israel shall endure. He begins with his first-born, Reuben, his child by Leah, and then proceeds with Leah's other sons, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, and Issachar, before blessing Dan, child by his handmaid Bilhah. After a sentence of exclamation, as if the patriarch were pausing for reflection and rest in the ecstasy of the moment, Jacob resumes the blessing, beginning with Gad and Asher, sons by his handmaid Zilpah; he then blesses Naphatali, child by Bilhah, and closes the benediction with Joseph and Benjamin ("child of my right hand"), children of his beloved Rachel.

What are some of the chief characteristics of this poem of such great antiquity?

It is spontaneous—the unstudied out­pouring of the patriarch's heart, rich in experience. Note, in the blessing on Reuben, how abruptly Jacob turns from addressing Reuben in the second person, to a sort of personal reflection: "He went up to my couch," as if talking to himself. Note, too, the sudden ejaculation at the midpoint of the poem.

It is rich in imagery, in the embellishment of figurative language, especially in the use of metaphor: "Judah is a lion's whelp," "Issachar is a strong ass," "Dan shall be a serpent, ... an adder," "Naphtali is a hind," "Benjamin is a wolf that ravineth," and "Joseph is a fruitful bough." Note the opulence of the blessings poured upon the head of Joseph—blessings "above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills."

And it is eminently predictive. Upon the aged patriarch in his dying hour descends the gift of prophecy. Reuben, "unstable as water," the rights of the first born with­drawn, will forfeit the leadership of Israel, which will be transferred to Judah. Simeon and Levi, brutal and revengeful, will have no territorial inheritance in Israel; Levi's inheritance is scattered among forty-eight cities; Judah (the name means "praise") will have the praise of his brethren and supremacy among them until Messiah shall come and become leader of spiritual Israel. Zebulun's territory will ultimately touch the Mediterranean and reach to Zidon. Issachar will inherit the pleasant land of lower Galilee with the fertile tableland of Jezreel. Dan is to become a judge in Israel (Samson was of the tribe of Dan) and— unhappily—be the first tribe to "set up the graven image" in the land (for which reason, doubtless, as well as for his serpent­like character, Dan is omitted from the roster of tribes entering the heavenly Canaan, as given in Revelation 7).

Gad will be noted for his bravery. Asher will inherit the fruitful coastal lands of Carmel, which will be the source of abundance of field products. Naphtali will be recognized for his gift of oratory. Joseph—the first-born son of the patriarch's Rachel—is to be the recipient of unlimited blessings; he will have a special endowment of "the Mighty One of Jacob." Benjamin will be noted for his capacity for skillful warfare. Saul and Jonathan came from the tribe of Benjamin.The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary

Thus—in the language of poetry—Jacob blessed his sons and through them the twelve tribes of Israel. No one was omitted. And then the grandson of Abraham, the father of the faithful, gave brief charge for his burial, and "gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."

* See Robert Lowth, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, Lecture XIX (Boston: Joseph T. Buckingham, 1815); Richard G. Moulton, The Modern Reader's Bible (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944), pp. 1526., 1527; The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1954), vol. 3, pp. 23, 24.