Jacob's blessings on his sons and grandsons here are interesting because they represent a father's insight into his children's character, probably God-given. The Lord, who searches and knows us, is the real author of these pages, and Jacob's blessing involves a lot of allusions to the tribes that would bear these names. The authors were inspired to lay out a picture of the tribal structure...where they live, which are most prominent...in a way that shows how God worked to create it, working in and through Jacob and his sons. This passage is kind of a summary of what has gone before through the entire book of Genesis, as Israel was formed step-by-step from a single couple.
It seems fitting that Jacob should reiterate here the promises God made to him, his father, and grandfather. He's looking upon his legacy and seems touched by how abundantly filled those promises already are, knowing that even more is to come. In blessing Joseph's sons, he replays the theme of the eldest making way for a younger brother to come into prominence. Jesus' life and death and resurrection would call a worthy "younger brother" in the Church to be the new Israel, the new "chosen nation" With Jacob's arms forming a cross, Ephraim, whose tribe would reign over the ten Northern Tribes, was given the birthright and the power. Jacob, like his father, is blind from age, blind to everything that gives a person worldly status, including age, physical characteristics, wealth, charm. Jesus himself, though firstborn of his mother Mary, had "brethren" who were probably his father's sons or other cousins, who treated him the way older brothers treat younger ones. God's plan is foreshadowed again and again, until eventually Jesus the younger brother dies and rises again to save the older brothers in the culmination of history.
As Jacob moves on to comment on his own sons, he wastes no time in condemning the first three sons for reasons we've already read about. These three squandered what could have been theirs when they chose to destroy rather than build up. Reuben's tribe is going to remain small and insignificant because of his self-aggrandizing action against his father, despite his incredible potential. Simeon and Levi will be destroyed because they chose to destroy in anger, and they will no longer be able to claim independence as tribes, remaining as helpless and dependent as the circumcised men and hamstrung oxen they attacked.
Judah, the one for whom the Jews would be named, the one from whom all kings to Jesus himself would come, is depicted as a royal lion, a terror in righteous war and the bearer of authority. The Messiah would be of Judah, and would unite the donkey, the old nation, and the donkey's foal, the "unbroken" Gentiles, in his incredibly fertile vineyard. The wine, the Blood of Christ, washed clean Judah, and then the shining, glorious Messiah would reign.
Zebulun's territory of seashore and harbors, and the hard labor of the tribe of Issachar are allusions to the later tribes, and Dan's "judgement" of the tribes was an indication of Samson, who was a Danite. Asher's very fruitful land was mentioned, and Benjamin, the tribe of zealous St. Paul, whose land was the site of a terrible war, was prophetically described.
