49:1 Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather together so I can tell you 4 what will happen to you in the future. 5
24:20 Then Balaam 6 looked on Amalek and delivered this oracle: 7
“Amalek was the first 8 of the nations,
but his end will be that he will perish.”
23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. 9
In days to come 10
you people will come to understand this clearly. 11
1 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “totally.”
2 tn Heb “do the evil.”
3 tn Heb “the work of your hands.”
4 tn After the imperative, the cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose/result.
5 tn The expression “in the future” (אַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים, ’akharit hayyamim, “in the end of days”) is found most frequently in prophetic passages; it may refer to the end of the age, the eschaton, or to the distant future. The contents of some of the sayings in this chapter stretch from the immediate circumstances to the time of the settlement in the land to the coming of Messiah. There is a great deal of literature on this chapter, including among others C. Armerding, “The Last Words of Jacob: Genesis 49,” BSac 112 (1955): 320-28; H. Pehlke, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Genesis 49:1-28” (Th.D. dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1985); and B. Vawter, “The Canaanite Background of Genesis 49,” CBQ 17 (1955): 1-18.
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Balaam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “and he lifted up his oracle and said.” So also in vv. 21, 23.
8 sn This probably means that it held first place, or it thought that it was “the first of the nations.” It was not the first, either in order or greatness.
9 tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”
10 tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.
11 tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).
12 tn Heb “David their king”; cf. NCV “the king from David’s family”; TEV “a descendant of David their king”; NLT “David’s descendant, their king.”
13 tn Heb “his goodness”; NLT “his good gifts.”
14 tn Heb “in the end of the days.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT “in the last days.”
15 tn The Greek puts an emphasis on the quality of God’s final revelation. As such, it is more than an indefinite notion (“a son”) though less than a definite one (“the son”), for this final revelation is not just through any son of God, nor is the emphasis specifically on the person himself. Rather, the focus here is on the nature of the vehicle of God’s revelation: He is no mere spokesman (or prophet) for God, nor is he merely a heavenly messenger (or angel); instead, this final revelation comes through one who is intimately acquainted with the heavenly Father in a way that only a family member could be. There is, however, no exact equivalent in English (“in son” is hardly good English style).
16 tn Grk “the ages.” The temporal (ages) came to be used of the spatial (what exists in those time periods). See Heb 11:3 for the same usage.