Genesis 49:3-4 - Exposition

Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power :—Jacob's patriarchal benediction takes the form of an elevated poem, or sublime religious hymn, exhibiting the well-known classes of parallelism, the synthetic the antithetic, and the synonymous, not alone in its separate clauses, but sometimes also in its stanzas or verses. As was perhaps to be expected, it begins with Reuben, who is characterized by a threefold designation, viz.,