Genesis 49:1
And Jacob called his sons, and said to them: Gather yourselves together that I may tell you the things that shall befall you in the last days.
Open Genesis 49:1 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Vocavit autem Jacob filios suos, et ait eis : Congregamini, ut annuntiem quæ ventura sunt vobis in diebus novissimis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἐκάλεσεν δὲ Ἰακὼβ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτοῦ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Συνάχθητε, ἵνα ἀναγγείλω ὑμῖν τί ἀπαντήσει ὑμῖν ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμέρων.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Last. Hebrew, "future days." It was an ancient and commendable custom, for parents to assemble their children in their last moments, to give them salutary instructions. They often also foretold to them what should happen. See Deuteronomy xxxi; Josue xxiv; 1 Kings xii; Tobias iv. 3; 1 Machabees ii. Cyrus and Socrates both believed that they had then an insight into futurity. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Origen A Letter from Origen to Africanus
And as to an appearance (which is better than a dream), he speaks as follows about himself: “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And he saw that he prevailed not against him, and he touched the breadth of his thigh; and the breadth of Jacob’s thigh grew stiff while he was wrestling with him. And he said to him, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said to him, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: for thou hast prevailed with God, and art powerful with men. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. …
St Augustine Reply to Faustus the Manichæan, Faustus denies that the prophets predicted Christ. Augustin proves such prediction from the New Testament, and expounds at length the principal types of Christ in the Old Testament
42. I should like to know, or rather, it would be well not to know, with what blindness of mind Faustus reads the passage where Jacob calls his sons, and says, "Assemble, that I may tell you the things that are to happen in the last day. Assemble and hear, ye sons of Jacob; give ear to Israel, your father." Surely these are the words of a prophet. What, then, does he say of his son Judah, of whose tribe Christ came of the seed of David according to the flesh, as the apostle teaches? "Judah," he says, "thy brethren shall praise thee: thy hand shall be upon the backs of thine enemies; the sons of thy father shall bow down to thee. …