Genesis 49:28

Summary

The verse closes the sequence of Jacob's oracles over his sons (Genesis 49) by naming them collectively as "the tribes of Israel," numbering them at twelve, and summarizing that their father spoke to them and blessed each one individually, matching each blessing to the person.

Key words

• shivtei ("tribes of", H7626H) — masculine plural construct, linking directly to Yisrael, identifying the twelve as tribal units rather than merely as individual sons.
• dibber ("he spoke", H1696G) — Piel perfect, intensive stem describing a completed act of speaking; sets up the narrative summary before the blessing itself.
• yevarekh ("he blessed", H1288) — Piel narrative (vav-consecutive) form, continuing the storyline: "and then he blessed."
• ish ("each man/everyone", H0376I) — a distributive noun without article, signaling that the blessing was allotted individually rather than collectively.
• birkato ("his blessing", H1293 + suffix H9023) — feminine singular construct with 3rd person masculine singular suffix, tying each blessing possessively to its specific recipient.

What the text says

The verse opens with kol ("all of", H3605) in construct with 'elleh ("these", H428), producing "all these are the tribes of Israel," followed by the cardinal number sheneim 'asar ("twelve", H8147+H6240) in apposition, giving the total count. The sentence then shifts with the conjunction ve- ("and", H9002) into a second clause introduced by the relative 'asher ("which", H834A), stating "this is what their father spoke to them," using dibber (Piel perfect of H1696) to mark a completed speech-act.

The narrative continues with vayevarekh ("and he blessed", H1288), a vav-consecutive Piel form that sequences the blessing after the speaking. The object marker 'otam ("them", H853+H9038) marks the sons as recipients. The clause is then intensified by a distributive construction: ish 'asher ke-virkato berakh 'otam — literally "each man, according to his blessing, he blessed them" — repeating the root barakh (H1288) twice, once in the narrative form and once in the perfect (berakh). This repetition, combined with ish (H376I) and the possessive birkato (H1293+H9023), underscores that the blessing given to each son corresponded specifically to that individual, a nuance built through Hebrew's use of distributive apposition and root repetition rather than through any single translatable word.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shivtei Yisrael ("tribes of Israel") as "υἱοὶ Ἰακὼβ" ("sons of Jacob"), shifting the designation from tribal identity to sonship and from "Israel" to "Jacob." The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with "in tribubus Israël," preserving "tribes." The Hebrew's double use of the root barakh (H1288) — first in narrative form, then in perfect form describing the manner of blessing — is rendered in the LXX and Vulgate with a single blessing verb followed by a modifying phrase ("κατὰ τὴν εὐλογίαν αὐτοῦ" / "benedictionibus propriis"), which conveys the distributive sense but does not reproduce the Hebrew's repeated verbal root.