NOTES for Gen 49:1-33
We are unlikely to understand the meaning of all these prophecies, for we know very little about the future of all the tribes. The biblical narratives will speak mostly of the principal tribes: Judah, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. But we can see that God, who sees the present and future of every person and every nation, reveals His design, one because this world is one, yet manifold because of the multitude of participants who take part in it. Before His eyes lies the history of each of us, just as the history of each of Jacob's sons lay before Him, flying like an arrow toward a future that has not yet come to pass, toward the time of encounter with the Creator and principal Actor in this history—when He comes in whom the nations place their hope...