Genesis 49:28–33
The Bible4Jesus.com Podcast
About this episode
Our culture is terrified of death, and so it sanitizes it, hides it away in sterile rooms, and speaks of it in hushed, sentimental tones. We either ignore it with a stoic secularism or we gussy it up with syrupy platitudes that have no biblical substance. But for the Christian, death is not the end of the story, nor is it an embarrassing inconvenience. A believer's death ought to be the final, powerful sermon he preaches to the living. Here, at the very end of Genesis, we see the patriarch Jacob preaching just such a sermon. His final moments are not spent in fear or regret, but in authoritative command. And now, with his last breaths, he does not ask for comfort, but gives a command. This command is not about his own personal comfort, but about the covenant.