Blessing of Jacob

As Simeon's territory was located completely within that of Judah, and Levi only had a few scattered cities, their fates were attributed to their wickedness.

In particular, Joseph is described as mighty, and thus as conquering, but and consequently it arguably suits the southern (i.e. Judah) bias of the source (Jahwist), according to the Documentary hypothesis.

[citation needed] Although presented at face value as a cohesive unit, some scholars claim that some verses came from disparate sources.

); and the conjecture that the song consists of sayings originating in different periods gains more and more credence (J. P. N. Land, Disputatio de Carmine Jacobi, 1857; Kuenen, Holzinger, and others).

Verse 24, however, bears no testimony of times following the glorious period of Jeroboam II; consequently the passage on Joseph points to the ninth century.

The JE asserts that it was probably in the second half of this century, at all events before the conquests of Jeroboam, and evidently in the Southern Kingdom, that the collection of these pithy descriptions of the tribes was completed.

Dillmann endeavored to arrive at the same conclusion by the supposed sequence in the enumeration of the minor tribes, proceeding from south to north.

However, even if there were an exact geographical succession of tribes from south to north, it would prove nothing concerning the home of the collector of the passages, since the same order would have been natural for an Ephraimite (compare Holzinger ad loc.).

to connect Jacob's blessing with the Babylonian representation of the zodiac, specifically with the Gilgamesh epic, can not be regarded as successful.