Genesis 49:28 - Meaning and Application

Here is the sum of the blessings Jacob gave his sons, in Genesis 49:28. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi were marked by their father’s displeasure, yet Jacob still says he blessed each one according to his blessing. None of them was rejected, as Esau was. Whatever rebukes we face from God’s word or his providence, if we still belong to his covenant, have a place and a name among his people, and have good hope of sharing the heavenly Canaan, we should still count ourselves blessed.

Jacob also gave a serious charge about his burial, repeating what he had already told Joseph. Notice how he speaks about death now that he is dying, saying, “I am about to be gathered to my people” (Genesis 49:29). It is wise to think of death in the most hopeful way possible, so its fear is lessened. Though death separates us from our children and our people in this world, it gathers us to our fathers and our people in the world to come.

Jacob may have used this way of speaking about death as a reason his sons should bury him in Canaan. He is saying, in effect, “My soul must go to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, so bury me with my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, and their wives” (Genesis 49:31). His heart was set on this, not mainly out of love for his native land, but from faith in God’s promise that Canaan would one day belong to his descendants. In this way, he kept the promise land in his sons’ minds, and he stirred up both their desire for it and their hope in it.

He also gave very exact directions about the place, including its location and the purchase Abraham had made for a burial site (Genesis 49:30, Genesis 49:32). Jacob was afraid that after seventeen years in Egypt, his sons might have forgotten Canaan, even the burial place of their ancestors there. He may also have feared that the Canaanites would challenge his family’s claim to it. So he named the place carefully, and he mentioned the purchase even as he was dying, not only to avoid any mistake, but to show how much that country was still on his mind. It is, and should be, a great comfort to dying believers to fix their thoughts on the heavenly Canaan and the rest they hope to have there after death.

Then comes the death of Jacob, in Genesis 49:33. When he had finished both his blessing and his charge, and so completed his witness, he turned to his final work. He prepared himself to die by drawing up his feet into the bed, so he could lie down, not only as one patiently accepting death, but also as one gladly settling in to rest, now that he was tired. “I will lie down and sleep,” is the sense of it.

He then gave his spirit back into God’s hand, the Father of spirits: he yielded up the ghost. His soul, now set free from the burden of the body, went to the company of the faithful, where there is joy and blessing. He was gathered to his people. If God’s people are our people, then death will gather us to them too.