Genesis 49:27

Zebulun. .. Issachar. .. Dan. .. Gad. .. Asher. .. Naphtali. .. Benjamin

The blessings of Zebulun, &c.

:

Consider these blessings--

I. IN THEIR VARIETY.

1. Maritime power.

2. Husbandry.

3. Political sagacity.

4. The power to conquer by perseverance.

5. Plenty.

6. Eloquence.

7. The warlike character.

II. IN THEIR UNITY. Unity in variety. This diversity in the distribution of gifts and endowments contributes to human happiness and to human prosperity. (T. H. Leale.)

Zebulun and Issachar:

The tribes of the last two sons of Leah Moses unites together, and, like Jacob, places Zebulun, the younger, first. It has been represented by many, that from the words Jacob used with regard to Issachar, the patriarch was reproving this tribe for its indolence and for preferring ease at the sacrifice of liberty, that, “like an idle beast of burden, he would rather submit to the yoke and be forced to do the work of a slave than risk his possessions and his peace in the struggle for liberty.” It is impossible, however, to be satisfied with such a view after reading the words of Moses with reference to this tribe. When we read of Issachar “calling the people unto the mountain, and there offering the sacrifices of righteousness,” such a view would be utterly inconsistent with these words. If we trace the further history of this tribe, recorded in Judges 5:15, we find that, so far from shrinking from difficulty and danger, they were among the foremost in coming to the help of the Lord against Israel’s enemies. Jacob’s language is clearly not that of reproof, but of praise, prophetically applied to them for their patience under what was heavy to be borne. With such a view the passage becomes clear, and contains many points of beautiful instruction. And let us mark first how God apportions to each one his own appointed place. Jacob allotted to each tribe the place it was afterwards to occupy, just as if he had had a map before him of the country they were to inhabit, while as yet they had not one foot of land in their possession. The tribes were not settled in their various positions according to Joshua’s plan. God appointed that their places should be given them by lot, and He made the lot to fall exactly as Jacob and Moses uttered their predictions. And God placed each one exactly in the place suited to its capacities and the best adapted for developing all that was in them, and thus for His own glory. One He placed at the haven of the sea, another inland. One where it would have to endure oppression and hardship, another where it would have great prosperity, and be less subject to such pressure. We may be sure it is the same with every one of us. We may sometimes be tempted to say, “If I were only in another place or in other circumstances, how differently I could act.” But it is not so. We may be quite sure we are each one of us in the very place God would have us to he--the very best place both for our own temporal and eternal welfare, and for His highest glory. And such a spirit, it appears to me, is manifested in the character of Issachar here. Issachar is brought before us as finding the position in which God had placed him to be the best. “He saw that rest was good and the land that it was pleasant.” Thus the Christian finds the rest into which Christ has brought him to be indeed good, and that his place in Christ is a good land. When this has been learned by experience through the teaching of God’s Holy Spirit, the soul becomes ready for all else. And then it is that, like Issachar, the soul is ready to “ bow the shoulder to bear, and become a servant to tribute.” It can stoop, yea, joyfully stoop, to the meanest service for Christ. It asks no questions, makes no bargains, but with a spirit ever sitting at the feet of the Master, exclaims, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” It “bows the shoulder to bear” whatever the Lord may be pleased to lay upon it. (F. Whitfield, M. A.)

Issachar; or, couching between the borders:

If we consider nothing more than Issachar after the flesh, we shall have done with the text almost immediately upon noticing it as a prediction that Issachar should become a tribe of laborious husbandmen. But there is a spiritual Issachar, a borderer between good and evil; and would to God that his tents were nowhere to be found in our church. With this Issachar, or in other words, the wavering and undecided, for the description of whose character we find appropriate words in the text, let us now endeavour to become better acquainted. We shall notice--

I. WHERE HE COUCHES DOWN. Issachar has a strange and unprepossessing appellation, that of a “bony ass.” But who shall say how many amongst ourselves may not be thus unflatteringly designated in various parts of the book of God? We shall see why to the spiritual Issachar this name may be given, when we have learnt the characteristics which belong to him. Where do we find him? It is between the borders. He is couched down between the borders. Now, if we give a spiritual application to these words, we may take them as describing an evil and unhappy condition. How awfully does the Lord rebuke those whose hearts are halting in indecision--who are neither cold nor hot! To each of such lukewarm ones He declares, “I will spew thee out of My mouth.” He would that they were either one thing or the other: either cold or hot. Indecision is to Him an abomination. Where, then, is it that the spiritual borderer couches down, and between what borders has he pitched his tent? Strictly speaking, he is not one of those who are neither for nor against religion, neither Christian nor heathen. He is professedly for that which is right. He appears, indeed, to many, to have pitched his tent within the kingdom of God, and yet he is in a very deplorable situation. He has mettled down, as it were, between Canaan and Egypt. He cannot exactly be classed with the people of the world; but still less can he be numbered with the children of God. He cannot properly be placed in the same rank with the crooked and perverse generation; but still less can he be accounted one of the chosen generation and royal priesthood. He is couched down between the borders of the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of Belial. In this unhappy middle situation he can never sit down with the subjects of the former; but he will perish and be consumed with the subjects of the latter. He is a nominal Christian without a birth into a new life; he acknowledges the corruption of human nature without feeling his own; he is conversant with spiritual things, but not truly enlightened in them; he professes to believe in Jesus, but is insensible of his need of Him; he numbers himself among the saints, without being one; he knows how to talk of a life of grace, without having entered upon it; he imagines his life and conversation to be quite Christian, and yet is in thought and disposition no better than a natural man. His heart and mind are unchanged.

II. How DID HE COME INTO THIS CONDITION? “He saw rest, that it was good; and the land, that it was pleasant.” “He saw rest,” or repose, “that it was good.” What rest or repose? Was it rest for his soul in Christ? Was it peace with God? Was it repose in the great Redeemer’s merits? Was it a release from the burden and curse of sin? Was it deliverance from the servile drudgery of legal bondage? Oh no! quite another repose attracted him, and provoked his longing desire. “He saw the land that it was pleasant.” What land? Was it that better country, namely, the heavenly? Was it that blissful and glorious region of light and love, in a superior state of being, unto which Jesus Himself is the Way and the Door? Or, was it even that region of grace here on earth, wherein His people live by His dew and sunshine? Did his soul really desire this? Did he long after it? Nothing of the kind can be said of him. Very different inducements was he conscious of. It is sometimes one thing, and sometimes another, which leads persons of this character into their dubious situation between the borders. Some are attracted by the harmony and mutual love which they find among those who are quiet in the land. Another has naturally a soft and yielding disposition. He is easily affected and influenced. Another has a natural inclination to thought and inquiry. This leads him to search the Scriptures, where he finds abundance for his mind to feed upon, and to exercise his quickness of understanding. Another, from being naturally gifted with a keen perception of what is intellectually beautiful, is charmed with the sublimity of the inspired writings. The moving descriptions, the luminous imagery, the parabolic language, the lovely and touching scenes with which Scripture abounds, beget in him a kind of enthusiasm. In such various ways men may be spiritually couching down between the borders. “He saw rest, that it was good; and the land, that it was pleasant.” Thus it may be no real longing for reconciliation with God, no hunger for Christ’s righteousness, no thirst for the graces of the Holy Spirit, which induces them to renounce the world, and to join the people of the Lord.

III. In the last place, briefly notice THE SPIRITUAL TOILS AND PAINS THAT NECESSARILY ATTEND THIS STATE, AS ALSO THE FEARFUL PERILS WHICH SURROUND IT. This toilsome and harassing condition is depicted in the words, “He bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.” Having bowed his shoulder to bear, he has a burden laid upon him, under which he sighs and groans; and this burden is--not the burden of sin! Would that he felt this, for his state would then soon begin to amend. But this burden is, alas! his Christianity itself: that notional Christianity, to the drudgery of which his own wisdom has allied him. (F. W.Krummacher, D. D.)

Issachar an example of the evil that results from too easy circumstances

Looking at the characterization of Issachar, we may see the enervatinginfluence, of too comfortable circumstances on a man or on a people. The inheritance of Issachar was pleasant, fertile, easily cultivated, and exceedingly remunerative. So his descendants came at length, for the most part, to take things easy, and submitted to outrages which those in poorer circumstances must have resisted even to the death. They grew indolent and luxurious, caring for little or nothing but their own ease, and sinking at last into mere tribute-payers. Now all this reminds us of the truth that conflict is absolutely necessary to strength of character. He who has no difficulties to contend with has therein the great misfortune of his life; for he has little or no motive for exertion, and without exertion he will be nothing in particular. It is a serious affliction to a man to be too well off, and many a son has been ruined because he inherited a fortune from his father. Unvarying prosperity is not by any means an unmingled blessing, and may be often a great evil. In the struggle for existence which adversity causes many may sink, but the “survival” is always “of the fittest,” for it is of those who have been made by the struggle into manly, earnest, strong, heroic souls. Do not plume yourself, therefore, on your easy circumstances, for they may make you only selfish, indolent, and lacking in public spirit, like that son of Jacob who had his fitting symbol in the contented, because well-fed and Trot overloaded, ass. But, on the other hand, do not whimper over your poverty, for, bravely wrestled with and nobly overcome, that may be the very making of you. Too much money has undone many a youth; too little has been the spur that has urged on many another to put forth all his strength, and so has developed and increased that strength. When you are getting comfortable and easy, therefore, suspect yourself, and watch lest your patriotism should grow languid, your activity disappear, and self-sacrifice drop entirely out of your life. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Dan

We come now to consider the character of Dan, the eldest son of Rachel’s handmaid. The meaning of the name--“judge,” is here expanded by Jacob into the character of the tribe: “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel,” or in other words, Dan would procure justice to his people--to the people of Israel as truly as any other of the tribes of Israel. He would be behind none of them in that respect. The word “judge” is sometimes misapprehended. Its meaning is rather to defend than to sit in judgment upon. It is used of those who, when Israel had no king, God raised up from time to time as “judges” or “defenders” of the people, and who led them against their foes. The most conspicuous of these was Samson, who arose out of the tribe of Dan, and was himself an apt illustration of the character of the tribe. By his serpent-like arts he laid traps for his foes, and with great delight saw them fall into them one after another. This word “judge,” out of which Dan’s future history is evolved, is constantly used throughout the Bible with reference to God as judging His people; this judging being always a cause of thankfulness, as it meant a sure deliverance from all their foes. So much for the critical meaning of the word itself. The wisdom which is implied in the word “serpent” may be, however, of a two-fold character. It may be that wisdom which is commended by our Lord, or it may be that low cunning and craftiness which is of the very opposite character, and which stoops to the meanest arts to accomplish its ends. The expression “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel” clearly means that Dan would use his wisdom for the good of Israel generally, not for his own selfish ends but as one of the tribes of Israel. At the same time it is held by many that this form of serpent-like craft will be developed in a very special way as the end of the present dispensation draws near. The first germ of idolatry that showed itself in Israel, after their settlement in Canaan, was in the tribe of Dan. In the eighteenth chapter of Judges we are told the children of Dan found an image in the house of Micah, and that this image became an object of idolatrous worship all the time the house of God was in Shiloh. Here was a continuous system of idolatry, carried on in direct opposition to God and the worship of God, “until the day of the captivity of the land.” Later on again we read that Jeroboam made two calves of gold for Israel to worship in opposition to the worship of God, and he put them, one in Bethel and the other in Dan; and it is said, “this thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one even unto Dan.” There is also an allusion to this tribe in Jeremiah 8:16; and again in Amos 8:11; Amos 8:14, both of which are striking, and go far to confirm the view thus taken. In addition to this I may add the very singular fact that, in the enumeration of the tribes of Israel (Revelation 7:1.) as “the servants of God that were sealed in their forehead,” the tribe of Dan is omitted, and the only one so omitted. And now, the patriarch, having given utterance to his prediction with reference to the future history of this tribe, suddenly exclaims, “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.” There are two aspects in which those words must be viewed. In the first place, the previous declaration of Jacob that “Dan should be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward,” intimated, clearly enough, that warlike times were in store for Israel, in which this tribe should take a prominent part. It would seem as if for a moment he was carried in spirit into the midst of these times, and the dangers which would on every side surround Israel, and realizing the utter insufficiency of all human help from every quarter, he gave utterance to the earnest longing of soul for God’s help on their behalf in this prayer, “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.” “Dan’s is insufficient, Israel’s tribes united are insufficient, every human arm is insufficient: O Lord, we wait for Thy salvation.” But more than even this. As a true Israelite he yearns for the time when the Messiah, God’s salvation, should appear for the help of His people. Accordingly the Jewish Targums have given the true view of Jacob’s Words. They represent Jacob as passing over all the victories which Israel might gain in these battles, and saying, “Not for the deliverance of Gideon the son of Joash does my soul wait, for that is temporary, not for the redemption of Israel by Samson, for that is transitory, but for the redemption of the Messiah, the Son of David, which Thou through Thy Word has promised to bring to Thy people Israel; for this Thy redemption my soul waits.” But there is a second aspect of these words of Jacob. He may have been carried in spirit to that time when out of this very tribe Antichrist has arisen, and as he views for a moment his own people passing through its greatest tribulations, and beholds that darkest of all dark nights through which they have yet to pass, he breathes the earnest prayer for the salvation which shall be theirs at the close of it. (F. Whitfield, M. A.)

Genesis 49:27

He shall divide the spoil

The division of spoils:

There is nothing more fascinating than the life of a hunter.

On a certain day in all England you can hear the crack of the sportsman’s gun, because, grouse hunting has begun; and every man who can afford the time and ammunition, and can draw a bead, starts for the fields. On the 20th of October our woods and forests will resound with the shock of fire-arms, and will be tracked of pointers and setters, because the quail will then be a lawful prize for the sportsman. Xenophon grew eloquent in regard to the art of hunting. In the far East people, elephant-mounted, chase the tiger. The American Indian darts his arrow at the buffalo until the frightened herd tumble over the rocks. European nobles are often found in the fox-chase and at the stag-hunt. Francis L was called the father of hunting. Moses declares of Nimrod: “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Therefore, in all ages of the world, the imagery of my text ought to be suggestive, whether it means a wolf after a fox, or a man after a lion. “In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoils.” I take my text, in the first place, as descriptive of those people who, in the morning of their life, give themselves up to hunting the world, but afterwards, by the grace of God, in the evening of their life divide among themselves the spoils of Christian character. There are aged Christian men and women in this house who, if they gave testimony, would tell you that in the morning of their life they were after the world as intent as a hound after a hare, or as a falcon swoops upon a gazelle. They wanted the world’s plaudits and the world’s gains. They felt that if they could get this world they would have everything. Some of them started out for the pleasures of the world. They thought that the man who laughed loudest was happiest. They tried repartee, and conundrum, and burlesque, and madrigal. After awhile misfortune struck them hard on the back. They found there was something they could not laugh at. Under their late hours their health gave way, or there was a death in the house. They awoke to their sinfulness and their immortality, and here they sit to-night, at sixty or seventy years of age, as appreciative of all innocent mirth as they ever were, but they are bent on a style of satisfaction which in early life they never hunted: the evening of their days brighter than the morning. In the morning they devoured the prey, but at night they are dividing the spoils. Then there are others who started out for financial success. Wherever a dollar was expected to be, they were. They chased it across the ocean. They chased it across the land. They stopped not for the night. Hearing that dollar, even in the darkness, thrilled them as an Adirondack sportsman is thrilled at midnight by a loon’s laugh. They chased that dollar to the money-vault. All the hounds were out--all the pointers and the setters. They leaped the hedges for that dollar, and they cried: “Hark away! a dollar! a dollar!” And when at last they came upon it and had actually captured it, their excitement was like that of a falconer who has successfully flung his first hawk. In the morning of their life, oh, how they devoured the prey! But there came a better time to their soul. From that time they did not care whether they walked or rode, if Christ walked with them; nor whether they lived in a mansion or in a hut, if they dwelt under the shadow of the Almighty; nor whether they were robed in French broadcloth or in homespun, if they had the robe of the Saviour’s righteousness; nor whether they were sandalled with morocco or calf skin, if they were shod with the preparation of the gospel. Now you see peace on their countenance. Now that man says: “What a fool I was to be enchanted with this world.” This world is a poor thing to hunt. It is healthful to go out in the woods and hunt. It rekindles the lustre of the eye. It strikes the brown of the autumnal leaf into the cheek. It gives to the rheumatic limbs a strength to leap like the roe. Christopher North’s pet gun, the muckle-mounted-Meg, going off in the summer in the forests, had its echo in the winter-time in the eloquence that rang through the university halls of Edinburgh. It is healthy to go hunting in the fields; but I tell you that it is belittling and bedwarfing and belaming for a man to hunt this world. So it was with Lord Byron. So it was with Coleridge. So it was with Catherine of Russia. Henry II. went out hunting for this world, and its lances struck through his heart. Francis I. aimed at the world, but the assassin’s dagger put an end to his ambition and his life with one stroke. Mary Queen of Scots wrote on the window of her castle:--

“From the top of all my trust Mishap hath laid me in the dust.”

The Queen Dowager of Navarre was offered for her wedding-day a costly and beautiful pair of gloves, and she put them on; but they were poisoned gloves, and they took net life. Better a bare hand of cold privation than a warm and poisoned glove of ruinous success. Again, my subject is descriptive of those who come to a sudden and a radical change. You have noticed how short a time it is from morning to night--only seven or eight hours. You know that the day has a very brief life. Its heart beats twenty-four times, and then it is dead. How quick this transition in the character of these Benjamites! “In the morning they shall devour the prey, and at night they shall divide the spoils.” Is it possible that there shall be such a transformation in any of our characters? (Dr. Talmage.)

The blessing of Benjamin:

In Benjamin, the youngest and last of the sons of Jacob, there is expressed the culmination of all blessing for all the tribes of Israel. In this tribe is summed up, in a climax, all spiritual blessing for every child of God. Morning and evening together suggests the idea of incessant and victorious capture of booty. The warlike character manifested by this tribe was shown on many occasions in their history, and exhibited marked features of a fierce and wolfish character. Israel, as represented in Benjamin, shall devour the prey, and at night divide the spoil. The prophecies of Balaam, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as well as the minor prophets, are full of announcements that the Lord will again take in hand His ancient people, and they shall go forth, in mighty power, under the leadership of Christ as their Messiah, and shall destroy their foes on the right hand and on the left, and shall carry off “the spoil.” This is the emphatic declaration in the blessing on Benjamin. “At night,” at the close of this dispensation of darkness and sin and sorrow, it will receive its decisive fulfilment, and a morning shall be ushered in such as the world has never yet seen--the morning of resurrection, when the Church of the living God shall exchange her weeds of widowhood for her garments of glory and beauty, and shall rise to meet her Lord in the air, and for ever reign with Him over a regenerated world. Blessed morning, long expected! Well may every true and loyal-hearted servant of Christ exclaim with the beloved disciple in his closing word of prophecy, “Even so; come, Lord Jesus.” (F. Whitfield, M. A.)