Jacob Blesses/Curses His Sons
Toward the end of his life, Jacob assembled his sons and gave each his paternal blessing. But the first three of his sons seem to have gotten more of a curse than a blessing: Jacob rebuked each of them for their past misdeeds. But what exactly did Jacob’s words mean?
To Reuben Jacob says: “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and first fruit of my vigor, of greater standing and greater power [than your brothers]. But wanton as water, you won’t get these extras, because you entered your father’s bed and defiled it—my own bed he entered!”
Jacob is of course referring to Reuben’s great sin with Bilhah, his father’s concubine (Gen 35:22). As the firstborn, Reuben was scheduled to get all the benefits normally due to the oldest son—not only a greater share of his father’s inheritance than his brothers (see Deut 21:17), but the “greater standing and greater power” that were the traditional lot of the firstborn. In this respect the firstborn was considered second only to his father in the family. But all this Reuben lost because he was “wanton as water.”
This last phrase puzzled ancient interpreters: how can water be wanton? One proposal was that Reuben had been wanton in or by means of water: Rather like David with Bathsheba, Reuben had seen Bilhah’s nakedness when she was bathing, and this was what pushed him to his terrible sin. But Bilhah (apparently unlike Bathsheba) seems to have been entirely innocent. Jacob makes no mention of her; it was not as if the two had arranged some lovers’ tryst. Instead, Reuben went to his father’s bed alone; presumably, Bilhah was sleeping soundly.
This interpretation of the events is found in two ancient sources, the book of Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Although the Rabbis generally sought to deny this line of interpretation—in one oft-repeated rabbinic dictum, Reuben was guilty only of physically overturning Jacob’s bed in anger—the earlier account of things persisted in a few rabbinic sayings. Thus, when Moses blessed Reuben with the words, “Let Reuben live and not die” (Deut 33:6), he was apparently referring to the tribe of Reuben; but one rabbinic interpretation suggests that this was actually a prayer for the salvation of the long-dead person named Reuben. “You [Reuben] sinned by means of water; let one who was drawn up from [Moses in Exod 2:10] come and bring you back, as it says, ‘Let Reuben live and not die.’” (Genesis Rabba 98:4)
As for Jacob’s next two sons, Simeon and Levi, they also got more of a curse than a blessing. Here too, however, the Torah’s words are somewhat puzzling. “Simeon and Levi are brothers, tools of violence are their…” The last word of this sentence, mekheroteihem, is otherwise unknown in the Torah. Some have sought to connect it to the root makhar, “sell”—as if Jacob was saying something like, “tools of violence are their stock-in-trade.” The rabbis knew well the Greek word for sword, machaira, and some suggested this was Jacob’s meaning: “tools of violence are their swords.” In either case, the reference seems to be to the two brothers’ violent attack on the men of Shechem recounted in Genesis 34.
Jacob continues: “For in their anger they killed a man, and in a good mood they maimed an ox.” What could this be talking about? Surely when Simeon and Levi invaded the city of Shechem, they killed not one man but the entire male population (Gen 34:25). (Apparently for this reason, the ancient Greek [Septuagint] translation of the Torah reads here: “For in their anger they killed men.”) And where in the story of Shechem is there any mention of the pair maiming an ox? Probably the best interpretation of Jacob’s words treats this verse as a general statement about the two brothers: They are so violent that “If they are angered, they will actually kill someone. And what do they do when they’re in a good mood? Go out and maim an ox!”
Unlike his first three sons, Jacob’s fourth, Judah, gets only words of praise. Among other things, Jacob says of him: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff between his feet.” This seemed an obvious reference to kingship, symbolized by the king’s scepter/staff: kingship will be given to someone who comes from the tribe of Judah, namely David, and he and his descendants will rule forever.
The only trouble was that kingship did not reside forever with David’s descendants. When the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and all of Judah in the sixth century BCE, the last Davidic king was led away in chains, and never again did a descendant of David sit on the royal throne. Did this mean that Jacob’s prophetic blessing of Judah was simply mistaken?
The word that immediately follows these in Jacob’s blessing is ‘ad, “until.” This seemed to imply that the previous sentence should be understood as meaning, “The scepter will not depart from Judah forever”; true, it would depart for a time, but only until something else happens. This something was widely interpreted as referring to the coming of a new king, a messiah (which in Hebrew is simply a fancy synonym of “king”). As the Aramaic translation of Onkelos reads, it will depart “until the messiah comes, to whom belongs the kingdom.” If so, Jacob’s blessing was not wrong; he was just referring to something far, far off in the future.
Messianic fervor has gripped Israel many times since Jacob uttered these words, and the hope for a great leader, one who might help put Israel’s affairs in order, is still very much alive today. He’ll have a lot to do!
Shabbat shalom!
