Genesis 47:31: “And he said swear unto me and he swore unto him, And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.”
Hebrews 11:21: “By faith Jacob when he was dying blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshipped upon the top of his staff.
This is one passage that sure does not make much sense. Yet, it is quoted by Paul in the New Testament as the hallmark of Jacob’s faith.
First we need to determine just how to render this passage. Paul, in Hebrews, tells us Jacob worshipped on the top of his staff. The passage he was quoting from says that “Jacob bowed himself upon the bed’s head.”
There is a little confusion in the word bed. The word bed and staff both share the same roots. Up until the 6th century there were no vowels in the Hebrew and the context decided which word (bed or staff) would be used. The Masoretes pointed this out as mittah, placing a chireq under the mem making it bed. Paul, however, used the Greek word rhabdos for staff which is the same word that the Septuagint uses and thus it should be rendered in the Hebrew as mattah (staff). Recent Dead Sea Scroll discoveries have shown the Septuagint to be more accurate than the Masoretic text. Yet, the context in the Old Testament passage would suggest that the correct rendering would be mittah or bed as Jacob was bedridden at this time and close to death. If he was bedridden then how could he worship God leaning on his staff? Yet, the Book of Hebrews is inspired of God and Paul’s use of rhabdos would suggest that the Masoretic text is wrong and this should have been rendered as mattah or staff in the Old Testament passage. Practically all our modern translations follow the Masoretic text and render this as bed except the NIV which renders it as a staff. The Aramaic Bible uses the Aramaic word chutra for Paul’s passage which is the Aramaic word for a staff.
As far as I am concerned, if no less authority than the Apostle Paul renders this as a staff in the Greek and the Aramaic, the Septuagint renders it as staff then staff it is. On to the next word which is bowed and also rendered as worship. The word in the Greek in the Hebrew passage is proskuneo which is the Greek word for worship. The Aramaic Bible uses the word seged which is the Aramaic word for worship. The Old Testament passage uses the Hebrew word schacah which is your standard Hebrew word for worship. In the Old Testament Hebrew this is in a Piel (intensive) form so Jacob was really intimately worshipping on the top of his staff. Maybe we are better off saying he intimately worshipped on the bed’s head since he was bedridden. The problem there is the Hebrew word used for head is which is rosh and means top or head. Now remember this is not our modern day IKON bed with bed post and legs. Oriental beds were nothing more than a mat and had no head. Whatever end you placed your head that was the head of the bed. Ancients did not refer to their beds as having a head. So again the best rendering would be not head but top and that would only fit the word staff.
So that leaves us with the question as to why Jacob intimately worshipped God on the top of His staff. The staff was most likely not an extra-large walking stick as portrayed in these phony movies. It was an ornately carved staff or rod. He may have used it as a support, but it was definitely not designed for walking. It was (as in similar practices today) the symbol of patriarchal authority and the patriarch would make oaths and solemn injunctions upon it. In this verse Jacob enters into an intimate worship with God leaning on the symbol of his patriarchal authority. He does not need to be standing to do this. That staff was mostly likely lying in bed with him. The idea is that he was worshipping God at the very peak of his patriarchal authority which would declare that he was bowing to an even higher authority than himself, which was God. Ok, worshipping at the top of his staff makes sense in that light. But why does Paul highlight this as Jacob’s greatest act of faith?
I think the context of this verse makes it very clear what the great faith of Jacob was. This family almost died in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land. They were forced to leave the land God had given them to live in Egypt where they could survive the famine. They left the land filled with famine and death, to a land where they were honored and became prosperous because of Joseph. Everyone was ready to make Egypt their home. It is believed by Biblical Archaeologist that this was around the 15th and 16th dynasty when the Hyksos rule Egypt. The Hyksos were of Asian and Semitic descent and were foreigners to Egypt just like the Hebrews. With the Egyptians underfoot, times were good for the Hebrews. Joseph himself married a Hyksos’s woman and his sons were part Hyksos. Why not just merge into one big happy family Hebrews and Hyksos’s, bless be the tie that binds and all that. Everyone may have felt this way except for Jacob. When Jacob forced his son Joseph to take an oath that he would return his father‘s bones to Canaan and he blessed his two part Hyksos’s grandsons, Jacob was saying: “You are not Hyksos’s and Hebrews you are Hebrews who worship the Hebrew God. Not the Hyksos’s god Adad (storm god). Don’t let this comfortable world in Egypt blind you to your purpose, remain a separate people. This fellowship will not last, in another hundred years or so the Egyptians will be restored to power over Egypt again and they will not appear too kindly to you or the Hyksos’s. When Jacob leaned on his patriarchal staff and intimately worshipped God, he was confirming the Hebrew identity of his children.
This world is not our home, it is just our Egypt. There is a home that God has promised us with Him in heaven. Jacob’s hallmark of faith was that he knew that no matter how good Egypt was at the time, their future, their hopes and dreams did not lie in Egypt, but in the land God promised to them. No matter how much we want to cling to this world and all that it has to offer, we need to lean on our staff and enter intimate worship with God and confirm with Him that our future, hopes and dreams do not lie with this world, but in the world to come.
My world right now is the Town of Cicero where I dwell and work for the town as a bus driver for the disabled. I enjoy favor with the ruling parties of the Town as evidenced by a recent accident which could have cost me my job but for that favor. But you know, come next election, there may arise a new Pharaoh who knows not Chaim Bentorah. Another little incident an I may be out on my ear. I may be out on my ear without an incident if there is a new administration.
What made Jacob so great is that remembered the identity of his people and pledged on top of his staff or authority that he would be buried in the Promised Land so his people would not forget who they are.
We have a promised land in heaven, for now we dwell in Egypt and may even enjoy favor with the ruling parties of the land we dwell in. But that could change overnight like it did for Egypt. It is very easy to get content and satisfied with our life in Egypt such that we neglect who we really are and prepare for the day that we must leave our Egypt.
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