Reading the Bible: Genesis, Chapter 12

Yaakov and Yosef die. Yaakov’s blessings.

This is the last chapter of the book of Genesis, and it gives a nice closure to the events.

Yaakov asks Yosef to be buried in Israel

Yaakov is about to die, 147 years old. He asks Yosef to visit him (remember that they didn't live nearby, and Yosef was quite a busy man those days). Yaakov asks to be buried in Israel, in the cave of Avraham and Izhak, where also Lea was buried. Rachel, who died in the middle of a journey, could not be buried with the rest.

First interesting point is that Yaakov asks this for Yosef, rather than to the other brothers. Obviously, this shows how powerful Yosef was at the time. All feared him (we will also see this fear coming from the brothers as well at the end of this chapter).

Second point is that Yosef doesn't swear automatically to do as his father asks. He confirms that he will do the job, but then his father asks him to swear. This means that his father felt that his son is hesitant to do as asked.

Yaakov blesses Yosef’s sons

Some time after, Yaakov gets sick, and Yosef is informed. He decides to take his two sons to get a blessing from Yaakov before he passes away. Yaakov was blind by now. Yosef wants his youngest son, Menashe, to be blessed first, while Yaakov knew that Efraim is the eldest. In a way, Yosef tried to do for Yaakov, what he did for his father, by stealing the blessing from Esav. But Yaakov crosses his hands, correctly placing his left hand on the head of the eldest. Yosef tried to switch the hands, lying to his father about the identity of his sons. But his father gets angry with him for that.

His father says that Menashe will be the father of a huge tribe, apparently Yehoshua, the leader of israelites back to the land of Israel came from this tribe.

Yaakov’s blessing to all brothers

Yaakov’s blessing is quite a riddle to understand. Some would say its a prediction of the future. He mentions each brother and describes a future according to its past behavior. I will describe those that I actually managed to understand.

Reuven lost his chance of being a leader quite some time ago, upon his acts with the mistress and his failure to lead the group of brothers back from egypt (in the first time). Yaakov still remembered Shimon and Levi’s act of slaughter of the entire city of Shchem and cheating its people. For this, they will be spread across the other tribes, without a land of their own.

Yehuda, next in kin, was promised to be the leader. He is going to bring the line of kings.

The rest of the blessings are quite a mystery to me still. i need to study it more.

Burial of Yaakov

Yaakov dies. Yosef asks the Egyptians to emblem Yaakov’s body. Then they mourn him for 40 days. Both of these are not Jewish acts, but egiptian ones. After that Yosef asks Paroe to be allowed to go and bury his father in ”the tomb that he made for himself” (Genesis, 50:5). Obviously Yaakov is planning only to be buried in a cave, but as known in egypt, all great men have created pyramids or other big tombs for themselves. Yosef wanted to show the greatness and importance of his father.

The brothers take Yaakov’s body back to Israel, and put it in the cave. They sit another 7 days of mourning (which is our tradition till this day, and I believe it started from here).

Brothers fear Yosef and lie to him

On the way back, the brothers fear that Yosef still hates them, and now that his father is not alive, he will take vengeance. They lie to him that the father asked them to tell him to forgive his brothers’ acts. He cries, but tells them that he is now confident that all the past events are acts of God.

Yosef dies

Yosef was the first brother to die. After 110 years, and seeing grandchildren. He asks the brothers to remember to bury him in Israel, in his promised grave by Yaakov (none of the brothers received this promise).

This is how the Genesis book finishes. quite an ending with a nice closure.

read the bible text here (in hebrew).