Genesis 49 contains the Blessing of Jacob, a series of predictions which the Bible presents as delivered by the patriarch Jacob about the future fate of the tribes descended from his twelve sons. Some textual scholars date it substantially later than these events.Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (Harper San Francisco) (1987) Reuben is characterised as fickle, "unstable as water", and condemned to no longer "have . . . the excellency" due to Reuben's crime of having sexual relations with his father's concubine Bilhah.
