Joseph and His Brothers
205
“Joseph is a fruitful bough,
Even a fruitful bough by a well;
Whose branches run over the wall:
The archers have sorely grieved him,
And shot at him, and hated him:
But his bow abode in strength,
And the arms of his hands were made strong
By the hands of the mighty God of Jacob;
(From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel;).
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Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee;
And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee
With blessings of heaven above,
Blessings of the deep that lieth under,
Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
The blessings of thy father have prevailed
Above the blessings of my progenitors
Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills:
They shall be on the head of Joseph,
And on the crown of the head of him that was sepa-
rate from
his brethren.”
Jacob had ever been a man of deep and ardent affection; his love
for his sons was strong and tender, and his dying testimony to them
was not the utterance of partiality or resentment. He had forgiven them
all, and he loved them to the last. His paternal tenderness would have
found expression only in words of encouragement and hope; but the
power of God rested upon him, and under the influence of Inspiration
he was constrained to declare the truth, however painful.
The last blessings pronounced, Jacob repeated the charge concern-
ing his burial place: “I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me
with my fathers ... in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah.” “There
they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and
Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.” Thus the last act of his life
was to manifest his faith in God’s promise.
Jacob’s last years brought an evening of tranquillity and repose
after a troubled and weary day. Clouds had gathered dark above his