49:1 Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather together so I can tell you 3 what will happen to you in the future. 4
48:47 Yet in days to come
I will reverse Moab’s ill fortune.” 9
says the Lord. 10
The judgment against Moab ends here.
49:39 “Yet in days to come
I will reverse Elam’s ill fortune.” 11
says the Lord. 12
2:3 For the message is a witness to what is decreed; 18
it gives reliable testimony about how matters will turn out. 19
Even if the message 20 is not fulfilled right away, wait patiently; 21
for it will certainly come to pass – it will not arrive late.
1 tn Heb “come up.”
2 tn Or “reveal my holiness.”
3 tn After the imperative, the cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose/result.
4 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.
5 tn The construction is the particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) suffixed followed by the active participle. This is the futur instans use of the participle, to express something that is about to happen: “I am about to go.”
6 tn Heb “in the latter days.” For more on this expression, see E. Lipinski, “באחרית הימים dans les textes préexiliques,” VT 20 (1970): 445-50.
7 sn The phrase is not used here in a technical sense for the eschaton, but rather refers to a future time when Israel will be punished for its sin and experience exile. See Deut 31:29.
8 tn Heb “hear his voice.” The expression is an idiom meaning “obey,” occurring in Deut 8:20; 9:23; 13:18; 21:18, 20; 26:14, 17; 27:10; 28:1-2, 15, 45, 62; 30:2, 8, 10, 20.
9 tn See 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.
10 tn Heb “Oracle of the
11 tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.
12 tn Heb “Oracle of the
13 tn Heb “and you will not be for”; NIV “be intimate with.”
14 tn Heb “sons of Israel” (so NASB); KJV “children of Israel”; NAB “people of Israel” (likewise in the following verse).
15 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.”
16 tn Heb “his goodness”; NLT “his good gifts.”
17 tn Heb “in the end of the days.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NLT “in the last days.”
18 tn Heb “For the vision is still for the appointed time.” The Hebrew word עוֹד (’od, “still”) is better emended to עֵד (’ed, “witness”) in light of the parallelism (see the note on the word “turn out” in the following line). The “appointed time” refers to the time when the divine judgment anticipated in vv. 6-20 will be realized.
19 tn Heb “and a witness to the end and it does not lie.” The Hebrew term יָפֵחַ (yafeakh) has been traditionally understood as a verb form from the root פּוּחַ (puakh, “puff, blow”; cf. NEB “it will come in breathless haste”; NASB “it hastens toward the goal”) but recent scholarship has demonstrated that it is actually a noun meaning “witness” (cf. NIV “it speaks of the end / and will not prove false”; NRSV “it speaks of the end, and does not lie”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 106. “The end” corresponds to “the appointed time” of the preceding line and refers to the time when the prophecy to follow will be fulfilled.
20 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the message) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tn Heb “If it should delay, wait for it.” The Hebrew word חָזוֹן (khazon, “vision, message”) is the subject of the third person verbs in v. 3 and the antecedent of the pronominal suffix in the phrase “for it.”