Blessing of Moses

The Blessing of Moses is the name given to a prophetic poem that appears in Deuteronomy 33:2-27, where it is presented as a blessing of the Tribes of Israel by Moses. The poem thus shares its theme with the Blessing of Jacob, but otherwise these two poems have little in common, except for describing one of the tribes as a judge, and another as a 'lion's whelp', though in the Blessing of Moses it is Gad that is the judge and Dan the whelp, whereas in the other poem it is Dan that is the judge and Judah the whelp. Like the Blessing of Jacob, that of Moses contains few blessings, most of the verses describing the condition of the tribes at a later time.

Moses begins with praise of Yhwh, who had revealed himself to his beloved nation, and then passes on to the blessing of the different tribes. He mentions first the tribes of the south, beginning with Reuben and Judah, and then those of the north, Dan, Naphtali, and Asher. In regard to Reuben there is only a prayer: "Let Reuben live, and not die; and let not his men be few" (verse 6). Simeon seems to be omitted, but this is explained by Joshua xix. 1: "Their [the children of Simeon] inheritance was within the inheritance of the children of Judah." For Judah, Moses prays that the Lord may hear his voice, and aid him against his enemies (verse 7). Next comes a lengthy laudation of Levi. After a reference to himself with the words "Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him " (cf. Exodus xxxii. 26-30), Moses declares that this tribe shall be the teachers of the Law and the priestly representatives of Israel before Yhwh. Benjamin is next blessed as the beloved of Yhwh, "whom the Lord shall cover ... all the day long " (verse 12). By far the greatest attention is given to the tribe of Joseph; its land shall be enriched with all blessings, and it shall enjoy " the precious things of heaven" as well as the good-will of him that dwelleth "in the bush"; its blessing concludes with a comparison of its strength to the strength of the ox and of the horns of the "re'em" (verses 18-17, Hebrew; cf. Joshua, xviii.). The Mount of Tabor and the sandy shore and seacoast figure forth the happiness of the tribes of Issachar and Zebulun (verses 18-19). Gad is as strong as a lion; he selected the land which was to be the last home of the legislator of Israel (verses 20-21; cf. Numbers xxxii.).

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