MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 49:28-33
THE DYING JACOB
I. His peace. His work is now done, his last blessing pronounced, his last prayer uttered. Nothing more is left but to gather up his feet and die. His life was satisfied with the goodness of the Lord. With great calmness he gives command concerning his burial, but here he reveals that habit of mind which he had of always dwelling upon the past. He was a man who was fond of recording seasons. He had his history by heart. He gives orders to be buried with his fathers, but he cannot help reviving the tender memories that gather around that sacred spot. “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; … and there I buried Leah.”The sense of God’s goodness in the past gave him peace and hope. (Isaiah 43:1-3).
II. His faith. He was one of those who died in faith. (Hebrews 11:13-21). He had faith that God would give his descendants the land of Canaan for an eternal possession, and as a pledge thereof desired that his body should rest in that sacred soil. Like Moses, he was ready to forsake whatever honours his family might have in Egypt. He had faith also in his own future bliss. The salvation which he had long waited for, he is now destined to see. He was “gathered unto his people,” not only laid with them in the grave, but joined them in that better country which is an heavenly.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 49:28. Here is something which tells of the character of future judgment. Have you ever attended the opening of a will, where the bequests were large and unknown, and seen the bitter disappointment and the suppressed anger? Well, conceive those sons listening to the warning doom. Conceive Reuben, or Simeon, or Levi listening to their father’s words. Yet the day will come when, on principles precisely similar, our doom must be pronounced. Destiny is fixed by character, and character is determined by separate acts.—(Robertson.)
Genesis 49:29-32. Jacob loved Rachel with warmer affection than his fathers Abraham and Isaac, yet it was not his wish to be buried with her. He would show that he had the same pious confidence as they had in the Divine promises. His command, therefore, to his sons was a public profession that he also lived and was now dying in the same faith by which his venerable progenitors had embraced the promise.—(Bush.)
Genesis 49:33. He was gathered to “the general assembly and Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.” (Hebrews 12:23.) In Jerusalem, records were kept of the names of all the citizens. (Psalms 87:5.) So it is in heaven, where Jacob is now a denizen.—(Trapp.)