73 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path,.... Or be like that sort of serpents called the adder; or rather, that which has the name of Cerastes, which lies among sand, and being of the same colour is not easily discerned, and is often trampled upon unawares, and bites at once, unexpected; as Bothart (h) from various writers has...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.. Jacob finding his spirits faint and flag, stops and breathes awhile before he proceeded any further in blessing the tribes; and as he found he was a dying man, and knew not how soon he should expire, expresses what he had been thoughtful of and concerned about in time past, and still was; that he had been...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD. What a happy breathing-space is this! When you and I also are near our journey’s end, may we be able to say, as Jacob did, “I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.” He could not have said that once. This is the very Jacob who had, in his earlier days, been full of crafty policy, and tricks and schemes; but...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD. But he soon resumed his prophecy: —
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Gad, a troop shall overcome him,.... There is a paronomasia, or an allusion to the name of Gad almost in every word of the verse, which signifies a troop: the whole is a prediction that this tribe would be a warlike one, and have the common fate of war, sometimes be conquered, and at other times conquer, but however should be at last entirely...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
God, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last. This has been the blessing of many a child of God, — to fight, and apparently to lose the battle, yet to win it at the end. O thou who art striving against sin, or seeking to win souls for Christ, after many disappointments may you be able to clutch this sweet assurance, “He shall...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last. Many of God’s servants belong to this tribe, for their life is spent in conflict. They do not seek it, but it comes to them; and, for a time, they seem to be overcome, yet let them clutch at the promise given by God.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Out of Asher his bread shall be fat,.... Which signifies that this tribe would have a sufficiency of food out of their own land, without being obliged to others, and that it would be of the best sort; it occupied a tract of land, as Andrichomius (l) says, reaching from great Zidon to Carmel of the sea, a space of twenty miles in length; and in...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. Asher was a tribe that was placed in a very fertile region where everything was crowned with delight. Oh, to have our inheritance where we feed upon the bread of heaven, and where the deep truths of God become to us royal dainties!
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties. Well fed, and then yielding correspondingly. There are some people who like to have their bread to be fat, but they yield to the King no dainties. Let it not be so with us; but let us both feed well and yield well.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Naphtali is a hind let loose,.... Onkelos applies it to the tribe itself, and to the goodness of its land, "as for Naphtali, his lot fell in a good land, and his inheritance a fruit bearing one,'' as it was; for in it was the most fruitful country of Gennesaret, which gave name to a sea or lake by it, and which abounded with gardens, with palm...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words. Naphtali was a tribe notable for those that could speak freely, helped of God with a holy freedom in bearing testimony to his truth.
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Naphtali is a hind let loose: — The type of what a Christian minister should be,— indeed, what every Christian worker should be,— “a hind let loose,” one who can say with David, “O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds.” Gen_49:21. He giveth goodly words. He has liberty in speech,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Joseph is a fruitful bough,.... Or as one, like the bough or branch of a tree laden with fruit, as he was with children; one of which he called Ephraim from his fruitfulness, and both his sons became numerous, and the heads of two tribes in Israel; and with other temporal fruits and blessings, as riches, honour, c. and especially with the fruits...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Joseph — Ah, now the patriarch comes to his beloved Joseph, and here the old man lingers long, longer than upon any other of his sons: “Joseph” — Gen_49:22. Is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The Hebrew puts it, “Joseph is a son of fruits, even a son of fruits by a well; whose daughters run over...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; — Where he can suck up abundant nutriment,— Gen_49:22. Whose branches run over the wall: He does more than he is expected to do; nothing seems to content him, his “branches run over the wall.”
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him. His brethren who grieved him with their ill usage, shot out bitter words against him, and hated him for his dreams, and because his father loved him; and they could not speak peaceably to him, they mocked at him, conspired to kill him, stripped him of his clothes, cast him into a...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hand were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:) Joseph is a type of him who is both the Shepherd and the Stone to us, the Shepherd who defends us, provides for...
Spurgeon - Verse Expositions - Charles H. Spurgeon
The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength, You know how sorely Joseph was persecuted by his brethren, yet how the Lord was with him in all his troubles. It appears from these words that he was himself an archer, and that he was not in a hurry to shoot his arrows; his bow remained still. It...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But his bow abode in strength,.... For as his enemies were archers, and had bows and arrows, so had he, and repelled force by force; but then his bow and arrows were of a different sort, the virtues and graces that he was possessed of, as innocence and integrity, chastity, fortitude, wisdom, prudence and patience, faith, hope, and the like, which...