Gênesis 48:22

22. I have given to thee one portion The word rendered portion is shechem, ( שׁכם , shoulder,) and may have been employed with some allusion to the town of this name, which was situated in the hill country of Ephraim, (Joshua 20:7,) and the place near which Joseph’s bones were buried . Joshua 24:32. Here was the “parcel of a field” which Jacob purchased of Hamor, the father of Shechem . Genesis 33:19. And this in later tradition was understood to be “the parcel of ground which Jacob gave to his son Joseph.” John 4:5. But this tract, acquired by peaceable purchase, could not have been spoken of by Jacob as having been taken out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow. We have no record of any such forcible acquisition of land by the patriarchs . “Any conquest of territory,” says Delitzsch, “would have been entirely at variance with the character of the patriarchal history, which consisted in the renunciation of all reliance upon human power, and a devoted trust in the God of the promises.” Nor could Jacob have here referred to the vengeful slaughter of the Shechemites by Simeon and Levi, (Genesis 34:25-29,) which he ever reprobated as accursed and cruel, (Genesis 34:30; Genesis 49:5-7.) Rationalistic critics, who regard this whole narrative as a prophetic fiction written after the conquest of Canaan, explain it as an invention to account for or justify the double tribe-territory held by the house of Joseph, and find its historical basis in Joshua 17:14-18. But a later writer, inventing such a prophetic fiction, would not have used the preterite verb-forms, I have given, and I took; but rather, I give… what thou shalt take, or what thy sons shall take . The contest shows the aged patriarch to be speaking with his eye upon the future, and calling things that are not as though they were . The promise of the land of Canaan had been made so repeatedly to the patriarchs (comp . Genesis 48:4) that it now rises up as an accomplished fact in Jacob’s prophetic vision, and is spoken of accordingly . The iniquity of the Amorite was not yet full, (see chap . 15:16,) but its punishment is a foregone conclusion in the Divine mind. A like use of the prophetic perfect may be seen in the prophecy concerning Ishmael. Chap. 17:20. Jacob here identifies himself with his descendants, and speaks as doing in person what his posterity will certainly accomplish in the after time.