Before Dying, Moses Blesses Israel's Tribes, But Not All of Them -- Deuteronomy 33

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The Last Official Act of the Lawgiver of Israel -- Deuteronomy 33

These are Moses' own words of blessings to the tribes of Israel. In verses 2-5, Moses once again gives praise to God for Who He is and what He had done for Israel. He points out how much He loves the people of Israel. He makes reference to God's Words (the Law at that time) and how it is a true possession of value for the descendants of Jacob.

Before he gets to the individual blessings, there is, in verse 5, reference to his own role, referring to himself as a king in Jeshurun (the Hebrew word of Israel).  This was interesting to me today as our small life group has been studying another book in the Old Testament, that of Judges (which we too will take up in due time). Throughout that book, we are reminded time and again, before the judges, between the judges, and after the judges, that "in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Thus, the significance of Moses as king of Israel here takes on additional meaning for me. He really did all he could to keep the Israelites in hand.

And then from verse 6 to verse 25, we have accounts of ten blessings that Moses uttered. Wait a minute, you may ask, "I thought there were twelve sons of Jacob and twelve tribes of Israel. Why only ten blessings?"  Good question, and I had to do some digging into this to find out.

Let's start from the beginning. Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter.  Let's list the sons in order of birth:

1. Reuben; 2. Simeon; 3. Levi; 4. Judah; 5. Dan; 6. Naphtali; 7. Gad; 8. Asher; 9. Issachar; 10. Zebulun; 11. Joseph; and 12. Benjamin.

But as we look at the blessing in this chapter, I count only ten of them. Simeon and Issachar are not blessed here by Moses. Why is that?

Let's deal with Simeon first. Here is the best answer I can find from hermeneutics.stackexchange.com -- 

Moses died circa 1406 B.C. In order to understand why Simeon is not mentioned in Deuteronomy, we must go back in time to when Jacob, the father of the twelve sons who were the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel, died (circa 1859 B.C.). The record of Jacob’s blessings is in Genesis chapter 49. The relevant section is in verses 5-7:

Simeon and Levi are brothers – their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger and hamstrung oxen as they pleased. Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel.

The New International Study Version notes give this explanation with regard to Jacob’s prophetic words that Simeon’s descendants would be scattered:

Fulfilled when Simeon’s descendants were absorbed into the territory of Judah (see Joshua 19:1, 9) and when Levi’s descendants were dispersed throughout the land, living in 48 towns and the surrounding pasture-lands.

At the time of the second census conducted by Moses and Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, the tribe of Simeon was the smallest and weakest of all the tribes that came out of Egypt, only 22,200 men aged 20 years or more (Numbers 26:14). 

Simeon was cursed by his father Jacob, probably because of the event recorded in Genesis 34:24–30 when Simeon and Levi took revenge on the men of Shechem after the rape of Dinah. After the horrific event, Jacob said to Simeon and Levi,

You have brought trouble on me by making me a stench to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land. We are few in number, and if they join forces against me and attack me, I and my household will be destroyed (Genesis 34:30).

Moses was undoubtedly aware of this and that may be why the tribe of Simeon was excluded from Moses’ blessing. 

Now what about Issachar?  You will remember that Moses was basically at the Jordan River and would not be allowed to cross over into the Promised Land on the east side of the river.  This blessing was for those tribes (minus Simeon) that were going to go into the Promised Land. The tribe of Issachar you will remember decided to stay and settle in the west side of the Jordan and not in the Promised Land.

Hope that explains why ten blessings and not twelve.

David Guzik introduces these blessings as follows:

As he looked at Israel with a shepherd's heart, he could not leave them without blessing them. It must be this way. Moses could not leave this earth without a final blessing of the people he has loved and served in the LORD for these 40 years. This chapter is similar in its effect to the blessing of Israel (Jacob) upon his twelve sons as recorded in Genesis 49. Since Moses was the one who recorded the blessing of Israel in Genesis 49, it is not a stretch to think he consciously modelled his blessing on Jacob's previous one.

If you read the blessings and know something of the history of each of the tribes as we studied them in the earlier parts of the book of Deuteronomy as well as in the earlier books of the Torah, you will note that Moses took care to say something very personal and precious with respect to each of the tribes. There is no doubt in my mind that this reflects the epitome of leadership when a leader can do this while withdrawing from the work. Moses led to his very last breath.

I must point out something I found to be a real comfort to me in verse 25b in the blessing to Asher. He says, "And according to your days, so shall your leisurely walk be."  Chuck Smith explains this blessing:

"And as thy days, so shall thy strength be." Take that as a promise of God for you. As your days, so shall your strength be. God's grace is sufficient for you. And whatever you are facing for that particular day, God will give you strength for that day. "As your day is so shall your strength be."

I don't know about you, but as the persecution of Christians is spreading like wildfire even in North America, I find this promise here to be a comfort to the believer.  God will give you and me the strength we need to live our very last day.

In verses 26-29 he now turns the opportunity of the blessing back to praising God -- the key figure in all of this. There is none like Him he says in verse 26. I love the second part of that verse which implies that God "rides back and forth across the Heavens and the Skies in His Majesty to come to your help" (translation mine).  I've never noticed that before. It's an incredible picture.

And then verse 27 gets even better. He portrays God as a "dwelling place" for us, whose arms are everlasting, driving out His and our enemy, destroying him," and then verse 28, "so that Israel (so that you and I) may dwell in security, and all our generations being secluded in the land of grain and new wine."  What a picture these verses are of what God is doing for us right now. His heavens provide us with the necessary fresh dew for life.

Verse 29, summarizes it all up and says, "We are blessed, there is none blessed like us, because God is our shield that helps us, and the sword which keeps us as His. Our enemies will "cringe before" us and we shall conquer them.

Wow, what a parting message to the children of Israel, and to us, that Moses leaves them and us with. What an image of our God.

If you really want to dig deeper into these blessings and the whole chapter, may I recommend that you find some time to go through Matthew Henry's commentary on it which you can find here. It takes you through each blessing and what the outcome was as well.

Then go back and look at the picture of God that Moses paints for us here and then go forth each day knowing that this God, our God, loves us so much and He and He alone stands on guard 24/7 for you and me. If that does not move you towards Him, nothing will. 

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