Matthew Poole and continuators on Genesis 49:4

4 Unstable as water thou shalt not excel , because thou wentest up to thy fathers bed, then defiledst thou it . He went up to my couch .

This may concern either, 1. Something past, or Reubens fault; and so he is said to have been unstable or light and vain, as the word is used Iudg. 9. 4. Zeph. 3. 4. like water, moved with every little wind of temptation, and unbounded in thy lust, as water of it self hath no bounds, but will scatter it self every way, if it be not kept within banks or in a vessel or, hasty, violent, impetuous, in thy lust, like water, which either overflows or breaks its banks. Or, 2. Something to come, or R[illegible: 1+ letters]ubens punishment, and so the meaning is, thou, i. e. thy posterity, shall be unstable, or unsettled, flitting and vanishing, coming to nothing, or poured forth like water, useless, contemptible and weak. Such indeed was the state of that Tribe, of which we read nothing eminent in Scripture. See Iudg. 5. 15, 16. This I prefer before the former, 1. Because it is not probable that his fault should be described here in such general and ambiguous and dark termes, which is described so plainly and particularly in the following words. 2. Because this makes the coherence most plain. Here is a description, 1. Of Reubens excellent state to which he was born ver. 3. 2. Of his fall from that state, in these words and the immediately following, thou shalt not excell. 3. Of the reason of this fall, his great sin. 3. Because the similitude of water applied to men in this manner notes rather their impotency and calamity, than their sin, as Ios. 7. 5. Psal. 22. 14.

Or be the most eminent amongst thy brethren, thou hast lost thy preeminency due to thee by birthright both for thy self and for thy posterity, and it shall be given to others, the Priesthood to Levi, the Dominion to Iudah, and the double portion to Ioseph.

By committing incest with Bilhah.

He repeats the same thing and that in an emphatical manner turning his speech and face from Reuben to his brethren in a posture of indignation and detestation. Which you must not impute to Iacobs passion, he being now a dying man, and this being forty years after the crime committed, but to the spirit of God guiding his tongue to utter this, not onely nor chiefly for the punishment of Reuben, who, as many think, had repented of his sin, but for terrour, instruction, and caution to all others, and to assure them, that sin, though it may be long dissembled and born with, yet it will one time or other be sorely punished.

g But those and the next foregoing words may be thus rendred, Then defiledst thou my bed: He went up to it, or rather, he is gone up, i. e. he is vanished, or perished or lost; for so this word is oft used, as Iob 5. 26. Isa. 5. 24. Ier. 48. 15. And so here is an elegant figure, called Antanaclasis, whereby the same word is repeated in the same verse in a different sense as Ps. 18. 26. Mat. 8. 22. So here: He went up wickedly to his fathers bed, to commit a great sin, therefore now he is gone up penally, to receive condign punishment, his excellency is gone up like smoak, which ascendeth and is dispersed in the Air. And this may seem to be the truest Translation and Interpretation, because it keeps close to the Hebrew words and their order, whereas in our Translation, there is both a transplacing of the Hebrew words, and a supplement added unnecessarily.

Marginal references: Heb. do not thou excell.; chap. 35. 22. 1 Chro. 5. 1.; Or, my couch is co[illegible: 1+ letters]e.