Genesis 49:2

49:2 “Assemble and listen, you sons of Jacob;

listen to Israel, your father.

Genesis 49:6

49:6 O my soul, do not come into their council,

do not be united to their assembly, my heart, ¹ 

for in their anger they have killed men,

and for pleasure they have hamstrung oxen.

Genesis 28:3

28:3 May the sovereign God ²  bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! ³  Then you will become ⁴  a large nation. ⁵ 

Genesis 34:24

34:24 All the men who assembled at the city gate ⁶  agreed with ⁷  Hamor and his son Shechem. Every male who assembled at the city gate ⁸  was circumcised.

Genesis 49:1

The Blessing of Jacob

49:1 Jacob called for his sons and said, “Gather together so I can tell you ⁹  what will happen to you in the future. ¹⁰ 

[49:6]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text reads “my glory,” but it is preferable to repoint the form and read “my liver.” The liver was sometimes viewed as the seat of the emotions and will (see HALOT 456 s.v. II כָּבֵד) for which the heart is the modern equivalent.

[28:3]  ¹ tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.

[28:3]  ² tn Heb “and make you fruitful and multiply you.” See Gen 17:6, 20 for similar terminology.

[28:3]  ³ tn The perfect verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here indicates consequence. The collocation הָיָה + preposition לְ (hayah + lÿ) means “become.”

[28:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “an assembly of peoples.”

[34:24]  ¹ tn Heb “all those going out the gate of his city.”

[34:24]  ² tn Heb “listened to.”

[34:24]  ³ tn Heb “all those going out the gate of his city.”

[49:1]  ¹ tn After the imperative, the cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose/result.

[49:1]  ² 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.