We have had such in this church. Any church of any size has Levis and Simeons in the congregation. The church always has people who, like Issachar, are willing to do almost anything to maintain peace and comfort, and people like Gad who are immediately ready for any confrontation. And, of course, there are plenty of us, all of us to some degree, who can see that our lives have been marked, for good and for ill, by our parents and by the atmosphere they created in the home in which we were raised. No doubt much of what his sons became resulted in some way from the home in which they were raised.
Genesis makes no bones about that.
And we can see it for ourselves in virtually any Christian life we choose to study. Just as, in Revelation 2 and 3, we read of congregations that we can easily find in the church today indeed, to some degree, every congregation finds itself in those descriptions , so in Genesis 49 we find every Christian. It is not, of course, the sum total of all possible characteristics, but a sampling that reminds us of the motley crew from which God creates the nation he promised to Abraham. No broader is the way, No smoother is the ancient path That leads to light and day. Nor less the need of armor tried, Of shield and spear and bow.