January 27, 2023

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Genesis 49-50

Jacob’s Last Words to His Sons

49 Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather around, that I may tell you what will happen to you in days to come.

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

³ Reuben, you are my firstborn,
    my might and the first fruits of my vigor,
    excelling in rank and excelling in power.
⁴ Unstable as water, you shall no longer excel
    because you went up onto your father’s bed;
    then you defiled it—you went up onto my couch!

⁵ Simeon and Levi are brothers;
    weapons of violence are their swords.
⁶ May I never come into their council;
    may I not be joined to their company,
for in their anger they killed men,
    and at their whim 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 whelp;
    from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion,
    like a lioness—who dares rouse him up?
¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
    nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him,
    and the obedience of the peoples is his.
¹¹ Binding his foal to the vine
    and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he washes his garments in wine
    and his robe in the blood of grapes;
¹² his eyes are darker than wine
    and his teeth whiter than milk.

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

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong donkey,
    lying down between the sheepfolds;
¹⁵ he saw that a resting place was good
    and that the land was pleasant,
so he bowed his shoulder to the burden
    and became a slave at forced labor.

¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people
    as one of the tribes of Israel.
¹⁷ Dan shall be a snake by the roadside,
    a viper along the path,
that bites the horse’s heels
    so that its rider falls backward.

¹⁸ I wait for your salvation, O Lord.

¹⁹ Gad shall be raided by raiders,
    but he shall raid at their heels.

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

²¹ Naphtali is a doe let loose
    that bears lovely fawns.

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough,
    a fruitful bough by a spring;
    his branches run over the wall.
²³ The archers fiercely attacked him;
    they shot at him and pressed him hard.
²⁴ Yet his bow remained taut,
    and his arms were made agile
by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
    by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock 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 lies beneath,
    blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
²⁶ The blessings of your father
    are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,
    the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
    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, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, blessing each one of them with a suitable blessing.

Jacob’s Death and Burial

²⁹ Then he charged them, saying to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ in the cave in the field at Machpelah, near Mamre, in the land of Canaan, in the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial site. ³¹ There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah. ³² The field and the cave that is in it were purchased from the Hittites.” ³³ When Jacob ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

50 Then Joseph threw himself on his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him. ² Joseph commanded the physicians in his service to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel; ³ they spent forty days doing this, for that is the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

⁴ When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph addressed the household of Pharaoh, “If now I have found favor with you, please speak to Pharaoh as follows: ⁵ My father made me swear an oath; he said, ‘I am about to die. In the tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.’ Now therefore let me go up, so that I may bury my father; then I will return.” ⁶ Pharaoh answered, “Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do.”

⁷ So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, ⁸ as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. ⁹ Both chariots and charioteers went up with him. It was a very great company. ¹⁰ When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and sorrowful lamentation, and he observed a time of mourning for his father seven days. ¹¹ When the Canaanite inhabitants of the land saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning on the part of the Egyptians.” Therefore the place was named Abel-mizraim;^[j] it is beyond the Jordan. ¹² Thus his sons did for him as he had instructed them. ¹³ They carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field at Machpelah, the field near Mamre, which Abraham bought as a burial site from Ephron the Hittite. ¹⁴ After he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father.

Joseph Forgives His Brothers

¹⁵ Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?” ¹⁶ So they approached Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this instruction before he died, ¹⁷ ‘Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you.’ Now therefore please forgive the crime of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. ¹⁸ Then his brothers also wept, fell down before him, and said, “We are here as your slaves.” ¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? ²⁰ Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. ²¹ So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.” In this way he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

Joseph’s Last Days and Death

²² So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s household, and Joseph lived one hundred ten years. ²³ Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation; the children of Machir son of Manasseh were also born on Joseph’s knees.

²⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely come to you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” ²⁵ So Joseph made the Israelites swear, saying, “When God comes to you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” ²⁶ And Joseph died, being one hundred ten years old; he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.

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Galatians 4

4 My point is this: heirs, as long as they are minors, are no better than those who are enslaved, though they are the owners of all the property, ² but they remain under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. ³ So with us; while we were minors, we were enslaved to the elemental principles of the world. ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. ⁶ And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir through God.

Paul Reproves the Galatians

⁸ Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. ⁹ Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental principles? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? ¹⁰ You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. ¹¹ I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.

¹² Brothers and sisters, I beg you: become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong. ¹³ You know that it was because of a physical infirmity that I first announced the gospel to you; ¹⁴ though my condition put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise me but welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ What has become of the goodwill you felt? For I testify that, had it been possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. ¹⁶ Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? ¹⁷ They make much of you but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you may make much of them. ¹⁸ It is good to be made much of for a good purpose at all times and not only when I am present with you. ¹⁹ My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, ²⁰ I wish I were present with you now and could change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

The Allegory of Hagar and Sarah

²¹ Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by an enslaved woman and the other by a free woman. ²³ One, the child of the enslaved woman, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. ²⁴ Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. ²⁵ Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. ²⁶ But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷ For it is written,

“Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,
    burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs,
for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
    than the children of the one who is married.”

²⁸ Now you, my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, like Isaac. ²⁹ But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. ³⁰ But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the enslaved woman and her child, for the child of the enslaved woman will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” ³¹ So then, brothers and sisters, we are children, not of an enslaved woman but of the free woman.

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