The usual title of this chapter will read something like: ‘Jacob Blesses His Sons!’ However, although the text does say Jacob blessed his sons (Genesis 49:28), I think the chapter is mistitled, if and when the word “blessing” is included. Actually, Jacob is on his deathbed, and he prophesies about the fate of his sons in what he calls: the last days (Genesis 49:1). We might ask, what does he mean: last days?
Many folks today assume the last days are still to come, and the majority of those folks believe those days will soon be upon us. Yet, I believe that such an understanding has been forced upon the minds and hearts of innocent believers in order that certain “Christian” leaders may grow rich and be among the movers and shakers of today’s world. These false prophets are among the folks, the Savior mentions who say to him: “Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many powerful deeds in your name?” Yet, his response is: “I never knew you…!” (Matthew 7:22-23).
Moses also prophesied of these days, referring to them as the latter days (Deuteronomy 31:27-29), and he describes them in Deuteronomy 32. The latter days would be a time, when Israel, as a nation, would abandon their Rock, the same Rock, whom their enemies feared in Moses’ day (Deuteronomy 32:31). Furthermore, it would be a time, when Israel’s vine would yield fruit like that of Sodom and Gomorrah (Deuteronomy 32:32). It would be a time, when their wine, the fruit of their lives, would be as the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps (Deuteronomy 32:33). Jesus spoke of those days, as then present, and accused the Jewish authorities, who prided themselves as the movers and shakers of their day, saying they were no more than serpents, a generation of vipers (Matthew 23:33). Jesus, himself, claimed that judgment was coming, and it would occur in their expected lifetimes (Matthew 16:27-28), and would fall upon that very generation of leaders, whom Jesus accused of being a generation of vipers (Matthew 23:33-36; cp. Deuteronomy 32:33).
Jacob prophesied of those days (Genesis 49:1), as a time, when the nation of Israel, which was only beginning in his own day (cp. Genesis 34:7), would come to an abrupt end under the judgment of God, and this occurred during the first century AD, after the Jews, as a nation, rejected their Messiah (cp. Deuteronomy 32:31). Although the Lord would send them prophets and wise men in an effort to get them to repent (Matthew 23:34), they would reject them too and the nation would meet its end in a war with Rome, which would terminate in the destruction of their Temple and their capital city in AD 70.
Nevertheless, a remnant would be saved through the preaching of the Gospel (Matthew 24:14), whereby Jews would be gathered together from one end of heaven to the other (Matthew 24:31; cp. 13:41-43), on the one hand to be saved alive, and on the other hand for the guilty to be destroyed (Matthew 16:27-28). At first, when reading these scriptures, one may think that, although the nation was destroyed in AD 70, in 1947 Israel arose out of a different war and is still with us today. Nevertheless, neither Jacob, nor Moses nor even Jesus prophesied of the “end” of the nation of Israel. What was prophesied was the end of the nation of Israel as the Lord’s servant, vis-à-vis a nation through whom he spoke to the world. Certainly, Israel exists today, but who would claim that this secular nation speaks for God?
What occurred in AD 70 was, indeed, judgment upon the nation of Israel, but not necessarily for its destruction as a people. Rather, the baton of witness was passed from the nation that once spoke for God to the Assembly or Church of God, who, from that day to this, is the sole witness of the Lord among mankind.
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