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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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Genesis 48:21
Comments
We do not read of this anywhere else except in John 4:5-6. Jacob gave Joseph a parcel of land. It appears that in some conflict Jacob secured this land and gave it to Joseph. Just as Abraham took up arms to rescue Lot, so it is quite feasible that Jacob had to defend himself against the Amorites. By no means all that happened to the patriarchs is recorded by Moses. Such a gift of land in Canaan was not given to any of the other sons. Joseph was given this as a portion above his brothers because his father wished to favour him, and to remind him again of the land which God had promised, that his hopes should lie there. We live as strangers and pilgrims in this world, and we ‘seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God’ (Colossians 3:1-2). Our affections should be set on things above, not on things on the earth.
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Questions
Some have identified Sychar with Shechem, where Jacob brought ‘a parcel of a field’ (Genesis 33:18-20). The word in verse 22 for ‘portion’ is the Hebrew word ‘Shekem’, which sounds like Shechem, the son of Hamor, and of the name of the town nearby (Genesis 35:4). Because of this, notes Leupold, many commentators see ‘a subtle allusion to the town and the event there recorded’, when Simeon and Levi slaughtered Hamor and his son and made Jacob’s name odious (Genesis 34). But this cannot be the occasion referred to here because on that occasion Jacob rebukes them for their murderous violence (Genesis 34:30).
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