Appropriate Blessings - Genesis 48-49; Psalm 20; Proverbs 4:20-27

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, giving each the blessing appropriate to him. – Genesis 49:28

 

Appropriate? Really? I thought blessings were always… happy sounding.

 

But Israel mentioned this about Reuben:

 

Turbulent as the waters, you will no longer excel, for you went up onto your father’s bed, onto my couch and defiled it. In his blessings, Israel mentioned how Reuben slept with his father’s concubine!

 

And about Simeon and Levi:

 

Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel. – Cursed? I thought this was a blessing!?!

 

I’m not sure how I would have liked Issachar’s blessing, either:

 

When he sees how good is his resting place and how pleasant is his land, he will bend his shoulder to the burden and submit to forced labor. – Sure, it’s great to have good land, and work is good. But forced labor? Where did that idea come from?

 

On the other hand, Judah hears this:

 

The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his. – After Judah raises two wicked sons, gets his daughter-in-law pregnant by prostitution, and comes up with the idea of selling Joseph into slavery! He gets this! We only know two good things about him: he admitted that his daughter-in-law was more righteous than he was, and he did everything he could to protect Benjamin from the Egyptian governor’s wrath.

 

And Joseph is blessed with:

 

Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age-old hills. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers. – This one seems to make the most sense of all. He is called “the prince” and given abundant blessings… 2 shares among the sons of Jacob, as though he were the firstborn (see chapter 48)! Yet the ruler’s staff is still promised to Judah rather than to Joseph.

 

Then unexpectedly, Benjamin is told:

 

Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder. – Is that a good thing? On the one hand, it sounds like he wins and conquers. On the other, he sounds like a monster.

 

What makes these blessings appropriate? We can’t say with certainty for all of the blessings, but there are clues in the text about some of them.

 

Reuben, the firstborn, really had defiled his father’s bed by sleeping with his father’s concubine. Simeon and Levi murdered a whole town of unsuspecting people because they were angry that their sister had been raped. Judah may have been the one who came up with the idea to sell Joseph into slavery, but his repentance also seemed to be the greatest as he took responsibility for Benjamin. Joseph had been blessed by God, even in the midst of extremely difficult circumstances, and he had remained faithful.

 

The blessings for the future reflect the realities of the past and present in the lives of the sons we know something about.

 

Those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it. – Job 4:8

 

Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him. – Psalm 126:6

 

Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you. – Hosea 10:12

 

Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. – James 3:18

 

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. – Galatians 6:7

 

Blessings are a part of this reaping and sowing pattern. Blessings come as we stay faithful to the God who has begun blessing us. But we also serve a God who disciplines. And even his discipline is a blessing, because he treats us as sons (Hebrews 12:6). So the blessings here were appropriate, though we don’t understand them all because we don’t know much detail about all the brothers. But based on the brothers we do know about, we can see that blessings are not only related to our best wishes for people, but to people’s character and lifestyles. Blessings are tied not just to dreams, but to truth.

 

Father, bless me according to the truth. May the truth you bless me with be the truth that Jesus Christ has taken the penalty for my sins, that He is making me righteous, and that I am your adopted son in Jesus Christ. But also bless me by helping me to have the kind of character that sows seeds of righteousness and reaps sheaves of goodness. If someone were to bless me according to my lifestyle, I hope they would have really great things to say. Make me the kind of person whose blessings sound like blessings.