What Does Genesis 49:29 Mean in the King James?
And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Death is spoken of as being gathered into belonging, then that belonging is given a tangible place among the fathers.
THE MEANING
The verse names death as being gathered toward one’s people and locates the body’s resting place among the fathers. It holds kinship, place, and the body together rather than leaving death as an abstract ending. Its language gives belonging the form of a people and a resting place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death is only disappearance without belonging: the speaker names himself as being gathered to his people.
THE ROOT
נֶאֱסָף
ne’esaf
GROWS FROM
אָסַף
ʾ-s-p
To gather, collect, or bring in.
The Hebrew verb gives “to be gathered” the concrete shape of being collected into a people. The same root appears in words for an ingathering and an assembly, holding death and belonging in one image without explaining what lies beyond it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾasif: Ingathering; harvest.
אָסִיף
The root’s sense of bringing in makes the verse’s gathering language feel like being received into a larger whole.
ʾasuppah: Assembly; collection.
אֲסֻפָּה
This branch names a gathered group, echoing the verse’s movement toward “my people.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures passage through death as movement into relation, through gathering or being carried into company.
Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;THE THREAD
Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people.“Gathered” in both verses comes from אָסַף (ʾasaf), meaning “to gather” or “collect.” The repeated root makes Jacob’s words part of a recurring way of naming death as being gathered to one’s people.
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