Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

50:1-13 -It must have been such a difficult thing for Jospeh when Jacob died because he obviously loved his father very much, and not only did he love him, but he probably felt very much like the time he did have with him was so limited through no fault of his own. It was very unfair, that both Joseph and Jacob were robbed of their time together, and that must have been very apparent at this point. That’s what I would have done, spiral, be angry and bitter. Joseph breaks down and cries for his father, “and wept upon him, and kissed him.” I don’t get it, it’s very foreign to me, but Joseph is certainly struggling with it at this point. Joseph orders “his servants the physicians to embalm his father,” and they did, but even though this sentence seems insignificant, TB points out that it is actually very important. By this point, the Egyptians have perfected the art of embalming the dead, but it was a religious ceremony, meaning that the embalming was done by the priests of Osiris, which...

49:16- - After having blessed all the sons of Leah, we now get to the four sons of the concubines, beginning with Dan, the oldest of the four. Jacob makes a statement that seems so benign to me, but apparently is loaded with meaning, “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.” Sounds to me like he’s going to be a judge, incorrect. This word “judge” was the word used when Rachel named him after he was born, saying, “God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.” TB clarifies for us though that this did not mean that the tribe of Dan was going to be a group of court room presiders, but instead that they would be constantly judged by God. The territory that the tribe of Dan was given shared a border with the Philistines which resulted in Dan being fierce fighters. The bit about the snake might suggest that this indicates the struggle that Danites had with idolatry, with a significant portion of their popula...

Two things, first two years ago, I worked really hard to finish up with the book of Revelations so that I could be done by the end of 2021 and start into the Old Testament in 2022. With that being said, now two years later, at the end of 2023, I basically only have 2 chapters left in Genesis and I’d really like to go into 2024 moving on from Genesis and going into whatever the other books in the Old Testament have to offer, so let’s hope for the best with that. Secondly, I wish I had done a little bit more research before making the last post, because after listening to more lectures, etc there is a lot more information that I wanted to include about each blessing. I really like the way that TB did it, because as he went through the blessings, he pulls together other references and then looks at the history of each tribe to see how each blessing was fulfilled. It was very instructive, actuall y, I think that it was the best of his lectures that I’ve heard so far, and I highly recomme...

49:1-21 - Knowing that his time was pretty much up, Jacob calls his sons together again for their final blessings. We’ve seen this play out over and over again, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, etc. Interestingly, Jacob started his blessings saying, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.” TB speculates that this could mean that “last days” is referencing the last days of Israel in Egypt, the last days of their individual lives, or even the last days before Jesus returns this second time. The IM suggests, “In Deuteronomy 33:6-29, Moses recounted again the blessings given to each tribe. This passage should be studied and compared to Jacob’s original blessings recorded in Genesis 49. Reuben isn’t really told anything positive about himself, but more positive things about Jacob, that Reuben is the first born, “my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellecy of dignity, and the excellency of power.” Not a whole lot about Re...

48:1-4 - We all knew this day was coming, and Jacob even said it to Pharoah himself, that he was old and on his way down to the grave. Knowing that his time was limited, Jacob sent word to Joseph, and Joseph went down to Goshen with his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob set himself upright in bed and recounted the promises made to him when "God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me." Jacob was promised that he would be "fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitde of people." He's promises a lot of descendants, and I don't know if it's just me but that doesn't see hugely important, like if I was going to be promised something by God, that wouldn't impress me that much, I think I'd be more interested in having quality offspring as opposed to quantity. The second part of the blessing was that God "will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession." This i...