NOTES for Gen 49:1-33
We will hardly be able to understand the meaning of all these prophecies, since we know very little about the future of all the tribes; in the biblical stories the discussion will, for the most part, concern the main tribes: Judah, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin.
But we can see that God, who sees the present and future of every person and every people, reveals His design, one because this world is one, and varied because of the multitude of characters who take part in this design. Before His gaze lies the history of each of us, just as the history of each of Jacob's sons lies before Him, aiming like an arrow into a future that has not yet come to pass, toward the time of meeting with the Creator and the main Actor in this history, when the One in whom the nations hope will come...