Jacob's
Blessing: Benjamin; Genesis 49:27, 28
Gen
49:27 NASB “Benjamin
is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he devours the prey, And in the evening he
divides the spoil. [28] All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is
what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one
with the blessing appropriate to him.” The word blessing is used three times in
the space of a verse, and the point is that these statements of Jacob, this
prophecy, is in a sense a blessing. It is a statement of how God is going to
work through the twelve sons. Even though everything that is said is not
positive it still comes under the category of a patriarchal blessing.
When
we look at verse 27 we see the focus of this last prophetic word is related to
Benjamin who is describes as a ravenous wolf. This is the fifth time in this
section that Jacob has described the future of one of his sons or a tribe that
has come from his sons as an animal. Benjamin was the youngest son of Jacob and
Rachel. We are told the story of his birth in Genesis 3516 NASB
“Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go
to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labor.” Ephrath
is the Canaanite name for the village that is later known as Bethlehem. We see
those two names linked together in Micah 5:2 where we have one of the most
precise prophecies related to the coming of the Messiah, that He would be born
in Bethlehem Ephrathah. [18] “It came about as her soul was departing (for she
died), that she named him Ben-oni [son of my pain]; but his father called him
Benjamin [son of my right hand].” He has a special place in the heart of Jacob.
[20] “Jacob set up a pillar over her grave; that is the pillar of Rachel’s
grave to this day.” The irony here is that Jacob calls him son of my right hand
and the tribe of Benjamin was known because the vast majority of Benjamites
were left-handed.
Next
to Joseph, Benjamin was the favourite of Jacob and when Joseph disappears
Benjamin became the centre of his father’s attention. Whenever the brothers
were to go on any kind of mission Benjamin always had to stay home. Jacob
wasn’t going to allow to happen to Benjamin what had happened to Joseph.
When
we come to this prophecy it doesn’t focus on Benjamin himself but on the
characteristics of the tribe that will comes from Benjamin. It emphasizes their
military ferocity. They are pictured as ravenous wolves. You get this sense of
brutality, of violence, of strength that is going to be present in those who
come from Benjamin. They are going to be known for their ferocity in battle,
their military prowess. When Jacob refers to him as a ravenous wolf he is
comparing him to a wolf that is hungry. It is wild and can be quite vicious,
and if it is hungry it can be even more so and be quite dangerous. “In the
morning he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the
spoil.” So there is this contrast between morning and night. In language, when
you want to talk about the totality of something you use two
opposites—like meditate on God’s Word “day and night.” In the morning
would indicate also, in the early stages of the history of the tribe; in the
evening, the latter stages of the history of the tribe. In other words, the
tribe from beginning to end. So there is this violence, ferocity, and brutality
that will characterize the Benjamites.
When
the tribe of Benjamin left Egypt at the exodus there is no mention of Benjamin
other than just a list of the tribes in the early part of Exodus. The next time
anything significant I said about Benjamin is in the first chapter of Numbers,
verse 37: NASB “their numbered men of the tribe of Benjamin {were}
35,400.” But at the end of the forty years in the wilderness, as they prepared
to enter the Promised Land, we see that God has blessed Benjamin. They don’t
seem to be a tribe that has been characterized by rebelliousness that brought
about the death of so many because their numbers increased to 45,600.
In
Deuteronomy 33:12 Moses gives a prophecy related to Benjamin that seems just
the opposite of what Jacob says. NASB “Of Benjamin he said, ‘May the
beloved of the LORD dwell in
security by Him, Who shields him all the day, And he dwells between His
shoulders’.” That seems to contradict the statement of Jacob. So what does this
mean?
Benjamin
was allotted the territory that was just north of the tribal allotment of Judah
and just south of the tribal allotment of Ephraim. That puts Benjamin in an
extremely important area. It had various key cities within their territory—Jericho,
Bethel, Gibeon, Ramah, and Mizpah. Jerusalem is also within Benjamin’s tribal
allotment, and Jerusalem is the prized possession of God, the city on which God
has set His affection and said will be His dwelling place. So when we look at
the prophecy in Deuteronomy 33:12 we think of that in terms of the proximity of
Jerusalem and the temple mount. “May the beloved of the LORD dwell in
security,” Benjamin is going to be specially blessed because he is going to
have control of the territory where God will dwell in Jerusalem. The words “by
Him,” includes a preposition of proximity: “who shields him all the day.” God
will specially protect Benjamin because of the proximity to the temple mount.
So this is a prophecy related to Benjamin’s geographical proximity to the
dwelling of God on the temple mount.
Jerusalem
itself was within the territory of Benjamin, according to Joshua 18:28.
In
Exodus we have the exit from Egypt; Numbers focuses on their wanderings in the
wilderness, then at the end of the book they are about to enter into the land.
Then we have the conquest where we see the united tribes are successful. Once
they take out the major military powers among the Canaanites that doesn’t mean
they have taken control of all the territory. We see from the end of Joshua, as
well as the first couple of chapters in Judges, that as time went by they began
to compromise with the Canaanites. Rather than complete annihilation of every
man, woman and child, as well as all of their animals, they enter into spiritual
compromise with the religious systems and the idolatry of the Canaanites, which
begins to affect them and they are no longer able to compete the Canaanites.
This is what happened to the Benjamites. In Judges 1:21 we see that the
Benjamites initially capture Jerusalem but they are not able to drive out and
completely defeat the Jebusites. There is enough of a conquest where they are
able to live in Jerusalem but alongside the Jebusites. As a result they begin
to assimilate pagan values.
Remember,
the prophecy had to do with Benjamin’s ferocity, their brutality and violence,
and we see this in several of the key Benjamites in history. The first example
we have is Ehud in Judges 3 and he is pictured as crafty, one who adopts pagan
strategies in order to accomplish his ends. It is not too bad, it is just
subtle things that are said in the text about the way he handles the situation.
He has a particular ability that he has to exploit and that has to do with his
ability, and it indicates that he is from the tribe of Benjamin. Israel came
under the dominion of the Moabites for eighteen years and they cried out to the
Lord. They haven’t truly repented, changed their mind and quit assimilating
with the pagan culture around them. There is no change that takes place but
they do cry out to the Lord, and God in His grace, just like He does with us,
and raised up a deliverer named Ehud. He uses some rather deceptive tactics in
his assassination of Eglon, and there is nothing wrong with that militarily,
but the way this is handled in the text has a little bit of a negative nuance
to it in the way he is handling the tribute and being somewhat secretive in the
whole process and yet he is a tremendous judge and is honoured as such.
The
next episode with the Benjamites comes at the end of the period of the judges,
in Judges 19 & 20. At this point Benjamin shows his spiritual apostasy and
they come under attack by the rest of the tribes. In chapter 19 is the story
about a Levite who is staying in the mountains of Ephraim. He takes himself a
concubine and then goes down to his father’s house in Bethlehem. Finally he
needs to go back home and on the way back he is travelling by Jebus, which is
the Jebusite city often known as Jerusalem. He won’t go into Jerusalem because
of the pagans that are there. At this time the Benjamites no longer had control
over Jerusalem. They go on to Gibea and there is a story told that is very
similar to Sodom. He is with his concubine and is warned that they must not
spend the night in the open square. The men of the town are going to come and
want to have perverted sex with the concubine and the Levite priest
demonstrates his lack of masculinity. They have been welcomed in to a home and
the man tries to bargain with these perverts to not be so wicked. In fact, the
man tries to buy them off by offering them his virgin daughter. So we see how
pagan the Jews had become at this time. Finally the Levite gives his concubine
to them and they abuse her all night long and end up killing her. The next
morning he finds her dead and is outraged by this, so he cuts her body up into
twelve pieces and as a call to arms to the rest of the tribes he sends one of
the pieces to each so they will see what a terrible thing has taken place in
Benjamin. So the eleven tribes now are going to execute vengeance on the tribe
of Benjamin because they become so perverse at this particular time. All of
this speaks of their brutality. There is a four-day battle, Benjamin has seven
hundred stone-slingers, and in the first two days of battle they inflict 40,000
casualties on the other tribes. But on the third day the tide of battle turns
and the Benjamites are almost annihilated. Only six hundred of the 45,000 who
came into the land under Joshua were left. So they become an extremely weakened
tribe and are almost completely obliterated from history by the other Jews
because of their perversity.
The
third major event related to Benjamin has to do with the first king that God
has anointed over Israel, and that is Saul. Saul defeated the Amalekites. Saul
is a powerful man and is engaged in a number of military campaigns that defeat
the enemies of Israel. He is a great warrior. It is only later in life after
the event of rebellion in which he failed to destroy all the Amalekites that
his carnality begins to destroy his moral courage and he becomes the coward
that we see at the end of 1 Samuel. Jonathan his son is also of the tribe of
Benjamin and is a tremendous warrior.
There
were also other brutal, violent Benjamites such as Abner,
who was Saul’s cousin, and also as a general of the army he brutally killed
Asahel and then Joab has to murder Abner. Esther and Mordecai are also from the
tribe of Benjamin. At the end of the book of Esther in the story there is the
spoil of the anti-Semites that are destroyed by the Jews and divided among the
Jews. So in the evening they will divide the spoils.
Then
we come to the New Testament and there is one key figure that is a violent
murderer, a vicious, brutal son of Benjamin: Saul of Tarsus, before he became a
believer. We read various passages in the New Testament that describe him. In
Romans 11:1 he talks about the fact that he is an Israelite of the tribe of
Benjamin. He reinforces that again in Philippians 3:5. He was called Saul
because he was in the lineage, most likely, of king Saul. That name was a
tribal name that was passed on from generation to generation. We know from
Galatians 1:13 that he tells in his testimony how he persecuted the church of
God before he became a believer. He did everything he could in his
self-righteous zeal to eradicate the Christians. Acts 22:4 NASB
“persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into
prisons.” Acts 26:9, 10 NASB “So then, I thought to myself that I
had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is
just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in
prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they
were being put to death I cast my vote against them.” After his conversion on
the road to Damascus his zeal was still evident. Acts 9:29 NASB “And
he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic {Jews;} but they were
attempting to put him to death.” He is still stirring the pot. This is the zeal
of a brand new believer without any information, and he is causing such a
ruckus. [30] “But when the brethren learned {of it,} they brought him down to
Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus.” Then [31] “… the church throughout all
Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up.” He was a bull in
a china closet but once they got him out of there and sent him to Tarsus he
could calm down and learn a little bit and get past this zeal of the brand new
believer.