Hebrews 11:21

21. When he was a dying Our author blends two successive scenes in Jacob’s history: Genesis 47:28-31; Genesis 48:8-14. In the former, Jacob, feeling that he was in a dying condition, called for Joseph, and exacted from him an oath to convey his body, when dead, to Canaan. Then it is added, “Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.” It is this phrase which our author, in accordance with the Septuagint, interprets, that he “worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff,” Hebrews 11:21. The reason of this discrepancy is this. The same Hebrew word, according as it is differently vowelled, may read either staff or bed. By the vowel points of our present Hebrew Bibles (which points were invented and inserted in the fifth century of our era) it reads as in the English translation. But our author, probably correctly, follows the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew made two hundred and fifty years before Christ. Stuart plausibly argues that the eastern bed has no “head,” and forcibly adds that no such phrase as bed’s head occurs in the Old Testament. Jacob, having obtained his oath from Joseph, devoutly thanked God, feebly standing, as an old man, and leaning upon the top of his staff. Our author connects this event with the dying blessing of his sons by Jacob, because the whole formed one dying prophecy of Israel’s future in Canaan.