Of all Jacob’s sons, Benjamin receives the shortest blessing. One image: a wolf. Jacob is not running out of words. This is certainly not a gentle blessing, and perhaps we are surprised by that. It is, however, something that will continue through the centuries that followed, and perhaps even to you today.
“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder.” (Genesis 49 v 27)
Comparing Joseph’s lengthy blessing, Benjamin gets a sentence. It doesn’t sound much of a blessing, but it is.
Benjamin was the youngest and the one Jacob protected the most after Joseph was gone. We might have expected some tender words, but rather, he is a wolf.
History shows that the tribe of Benjamin produced some of Israel’s most ferocious warriors. Ehud, the judge, who delivered Israel from oppression. King Saul was the first king chosen to lead God’s people into battle. Even the apostle Paul, born of the tribe of Benjamin, who once devoured the church as a persecutor, and who by the grace of God spent the rest of his life dividing the plunder of the gospel across the known world.
The wolf became a servant of the Lamb.
Pause.
God does not waste nature, even the fierce red-hot tempers. The same intensity that once tore things apart becomes, in surrendered hands, the energy that builds, advances, and refuses to quit.
Maybe you have always been told you are too driven, focused and restless. But what others call a problem, God calls a gift waiting to be redeemed.
The wolf was always part of the plan.
Missions Paul 