Drafted by Grok 4.7 on 8 October 2026. First draft. Not independently reviewed. Leningrad Codex, through the Open Scriptures Westminster Leningrad Codex. The written consonants are printed. A Masoretic reading is footnoted when it differs. No Dead Sea reading was substituted unless it was read from a fragment. The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions are witnesses, not the default.
1Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather, so that I may tell you what will meet you in days to come.
2Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob. Listen to Israel your father.
3Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and the first of my vigor, first in rank and first in power.
4Unstable as water, you will not be first, because you went up onto your father’s bed. Then you defiled it. He went up onto my couch.
5Simeon and Levi are brothers. Their mekherot are instruments of violence.
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Mekherot occurs only here in this codex. “Instruments” is a guess beside “instruments of violence,” and the precise object is uncertain. The word is kept.
6Let me not enter their council. Let my honor not join their assembly. For in their anger they killed a man, and in their willfulness they hamstrung an ox.
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Leningrad reads shor, an ox. A wall would be a different word, and that word is not written here. The ox is printed.
7Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.
8Judah, your brothers will praise you. Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons will bow to you.
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“Praise” is the same sound as the name Judah. See 29:35.
9Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down like a lion, and like a lioness. Who will rouse him?
10The staff will not turn aside from Judah, nor the commander’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and the gathering of the peoples will be his.
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The written word is Shiloh, unvocalized in the diplomatic text. The reading tradition says Shilo. Whether it is a name, or a phrase such as “what belongs to him,” is not settled by the consonants. The written word is printed as the name Shiloh. “Gathering” for yiqqahat is also uncertain. Obedience is the other common sense, and it is not chosen over the written line.
11He ties her donkey to the vine, and to the choice vine the foal of his donkey. He washes his clothing in wine, and her garment in the blood of grapes.
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The written suffixes are feminine: “her donkey” and “her garment.” The reading tradition says “his donkey” and “his garment.” The written suffixes are printed.
12His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
13Zebulun will settle at the shore of the seas. He will be a shore for ships, and his flank will be toward Sidon.
14Issachar is a bony donkey, lying down between the saddlebags.
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“Bony” is gerem, the word for bone. The place he lies, mishpetayim, is uncertain. Saddlebags is printed, and sheepfolds is the other live sense.
15He saw that the resting place was good and that the land was pleasant, so he bent his shoulder to the burden and became a forced laborer.
16Dan will judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel.
17Dan will be a snake by the road, a horned snake by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider falls backward.
18I wait for your salvation, Yahweh.
19Gad, a raiding band will raid him, and he will raid at their heel.
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Gad, gedud, yegudennu, and yagud are one chain of sounds. The line is the name played as a raid.
20Asher’s food will be rich, and he will yield a king’s delicacies.
21Naphtali is a doe set loose, the one who gives words of beauty.
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“Words of beauty” is imre shafer. Some read the line as fawns rather than words. The written words are “words,” and that is printed.
22Joseph is a fruitful son, a fruitful son beside a spring. Daughters step over a wall.
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Porat is printed as “fruitful.” A wild donkey has also been suggested, and the last clause, “daughters step over a wall,” is compressed. The line is not rewritten into a smoother picture.
23Archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him.
24But his bow stayed steady, and his arms were made quick by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, from there, the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel,
25by the God of your father, and he will help you, and by Shaddai, and he will bless you with blessings of the sky above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of breasts and of the womb.
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Shaddai is kept as a name. See the glossary.
26The blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my ancestors, as far as the longing of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Joseph, on the crown of the one set apart from his brothers.
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Horay is “my ancestors,” those who conceived me. A related word would mean mountains. The written word is ancestors, and that is printed. “Set apart” is nazir.
27Benjamin is a wolf that tears. In the morning he devours prey, and in the evening he divides the spoil.”
28All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, each with the blessing that was his.
29Then he commanded them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
30in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which faces Mamre, in the land of Canaan, the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a burial holding.
31There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife. And there I buried Leah.
32The purchase of the field and of the cave that is in it was from the sons of Heth.”
33Jacob finished commanding his sons, and he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed his last, and he was gathered to his people.