The KJV Holy Bible

 

Genesis Chapter Forty Nine

 

1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

3 Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power:

4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

6 O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.

7 Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

8 Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

9 Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

11 Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:

12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

13 Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

14 Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens:

15 And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.

16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.

19 Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.

20 Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.

21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.

22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:

23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:

24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)

25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:

26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

27 Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.

28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

29 And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying place.

31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.

32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.

33 And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

 

 

Esoteric Interpretation & Commentary

 

The Hermetic Blueprint of Genesis: The Zodiac of the Soul and the Judgment of the Twelve Faculties

"Genesis Chapter Forty-Nine is a Master Alchemical ledger. As the Awakened Conscious Mind (Jacob) prepares to withdraw its energy from the physical matrix, it summons all twelve of its fundamental faculties (the sons) for a final, cosmic evaluation. In esoteric and astrological traditions, these twelve sons represent the twelve signs of the Zodiac, the twelve psychological archetypes, and the Twelve Energy Centers of the human microcosm. Jacob's dying prophecies are not merely predictions; they are strict Alchemical diagnoses of how each internal faculty has performed, determining their exact hierarchical placement for the next phase of the Great Work."

 

 

Verses 1-7: The Judgment of the Unrefined Forces - "Reuben, thou art my firstborn... Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel... Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations... I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel."

Jacob begins by assessing the lowest, unrefined faculties. Reuben (representing the raw, initial intellect and the water element) is deemed "unstable." Because the raw Mind lacks discipline and spills its energy purely on physical impulse (defiling the father's bed in Chapter 35), it loses the right to rule. Simeon and Levi (representing reactive emotion, anger, and dogmatic severity) are condemned for their cruelty (the massacre at Shechem). The Conscious Mind decrees that these volatile, passionate forces cannot be allowed to centralize or hold power; they must be "divided and scattered" throughout the Psychological kingdom so their destructive intensity is diluted and controlled.

 

 

Verses 8-12: The Exaltation of the Executive Will (Leo) - "Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise... Judah is a lion's whelp... The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come..."

With the unstable faculties demoted, the right to rule falls to Judah (the Executive, Purified Will). Judah is explicitly linked to the Lion (the astrological sign of Leo, ruling the Heart and the Vital Fire). The Conscious Mind declares that the supreme commanding authority (the sceptre) belongs permanently to the trained Will. The Will must govern the physical and astral forces until "Shiloh" (the Ultimate State of Peace, Enlightenment, and Divine rest) is achieved. Binding the foal to the vine and washing garments in wine represents the Will's Absolute Mastery and distillation of the Vital Life Force.

 

 

Verses 13-21: The Operational Faculties and the Serpent Fire (Scorpio) - "Dan shall judge his people... Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward."

Jacob moves through the operational faculties—Zebulun (commerce/exchange), Issachar (endurance/burden), Gad (resilience), Asher (nourishment), and Naphtali (eloquence). The most Esoterically significant is Dan. Described as a serpent biting the horse's heels, Dan represents the sign of Scorpio, the base of the spine, and the coiled Kundalini fire. This faculty acts as the Hidden, Sudden, Transformative Force that disrupts the lower animal momentum (the horse) and forces the rider (the unrefined ego) to fall backward, shocking the system into Spiritual Awareness.

 

 

Verses 22-26: The Crown of Intuition (The Master Faculty) - "Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well... The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength... they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren."

When the evaluation reaches Joseph (the Supreme Divine Intuition), the Alchemical tone shifts to pure exaltation. Jacob acknowledges that the hostile, lower forces (the archers) fiercely attacked the Intuition, yet its Power (the bow) remained perfectly strong because it was anchored by the Mighty God. The Conscious Mind heaps All Universal Blessings—of the heavens above, the deep matrix below, and the generative forces—directly onto Joseph. The text explicitly places these blessings on the "crown of the head," corresponding to the Crown Chakra (Sahasrara), the Highest Point of Spiritual contact, confirming Joseph as the faculty completely separated from (and elevated above) the dense physical nature.

 

 

Verses 27-33: The Withdrawal of the Life Force and the Final Rest - "Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf... And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people."

Finally, Benjamin (the Active Spiritual Will) is recognized as a fierce, devouring force (the wolf) that actively consumes and divides the material spoils. Having permanently structured the entire Twelve-Fold Architecture of the Soul, Jacob's work is finished. In a profound Esoteric Description of Conscious transition, Jacob "gathers up his feet into the bed." He intentionally withdraws his Vital Life Force from the physical extremities (the points of contact with the earth) back into the Central Spiritual Core. The Awakened Mind yields its temporary physical vehicle and peacefully returns to the Pure, Foundational Source of its ancestors.