Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47–50): Summary and Commentary

Parashat Vayechi (“and he lived”) is the last portion of the book of Bereshit (Genesis 47:28–50:26) and is read on the Shabbat of December 26, 2026. It is also spelled Vayechi, Vayehi or Vayhi. It takes its name from the first words: “And Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years” (47:28).

The tradition proposes reading each portion in four steps: what the text says, what it hints at, what the sages explain and what it conceals. Let us take them in turn.

Peshat: the simple meaning

Let us begin with what the text says, adding nothing to it.

First is a number: “And the days of Yaakov, the years of his life, were a hundred and forty-seven years” (47:28). And his first request is a promise: “If I have found favor in your eyes, place your hand under my thigh and deal with me in kindness and truth: do not bury me in Egypt” (47:29). Yosef swears (47:31).

The blessing of Yosef’s sons has a gesture that is the center of the scene: Yaakov crosses his hands. “Israel stretched out his right hand and placed it on the head of Efraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Menasheh” (48:14). Yosef tries to correct him: “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn” (48:18). And Yaakov answers with two words: “I know, my son, I know” (48:19).

The sentence with which he blesses both is the one that later became a blessing: “By you Israel will bless, saying: May God make you like Efraim and like Menasheh” (48:20).

Chapter 49 is a poem. Each son receives a few lines, and the three eldest receive rebukes: Reuven, “unstable as water” (49:4); Shimon and Levi, for their anger (49:5-7). To Yehudah it is said: “The scepter shall not depart from Yehudah” (49:10), and to Yosef a long blessing (49:22-26). The text closes it thus: “All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them as he blessed them; each one he blessed with his own blessing” (49:28).

After the death, the text tells of forty days of embalming, seventy days of mourning by the Egyptians (50:3) and a large procession: “chariots and horsemen” that go up to Canaan (50:9). And when the brothers fear that Yosef will punish them, he weeps, and says to them: “Am I in the place of God? You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (50:19-20).

The book ends with a promise and a coffin: “God will surely remember you, and you shall carry up my bones from here” (50:25), and “they placed him in a coffin in Egypt” (50:26).

Remez: what the letters hint at

Remez means “hint.” Here the reading pauses on letters and numbers: on how a word, when the value of its letters is added up (gematria), coincides with another that illuminates its meaning. The great collector of these hints is the Baal HaTurim, Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (13th–14th centuries), author of the Arba Turim. In Vayechi he points out, among others, these eight.

The first, in the oath. “Na yadecha” (נא ידך), “place your hand” (47:29), adds up to 85, the same as milah (מילה), “circumcision.” It is the same hint that already appeared when Abraham made his servant swear.

The second, in Efraim’s lowering. “Vehu hatza’ir” (והוא הצעיר), “and he was the younger” (48:14), adds up to 393, and “hu hiktin atzmo” (הוא הקטין עצמו), “he made himself small,” adds up to 392: with the kolel, they match. The Baal HaTurim concludes that for this reason he merited that Yehoshua would come forth from him.

The third, in his descendants. “Vezar’o yihyeh melo” (וזרעו יהיה מלא), “and his offspring shall be a fullness” (48:19), adds up to 390, and Yehoshua (יהושע) adds up to 391: with the kolel, they match.

The fourth, in what Yaakov gives Yosef. “Shechem echad” (שכם אחד), “one Shechem” (48:22), adds up to 373, the same as “bechelek bechorah” (בחלק בכורה), “in the portion of the birthright.”

The fifth, in Reuven. “Reuven” (ראובן, 49:3) adds up to 259, the same as “lo bechor” (לא בכור), “not firstborn.”

The sixth, in the anger of Shimon and Levi. “Ki be’apam haregu ish” (כי באפם הרגו איש), “for in their anger they killed a man” (49:6), adds up to 678, the same as “zeh Shechem ben Chamor” (זה שכם בן חמור), “this is Shechem, son of Chamor.”

The seventh, in the scepter. “Umechokek mibein raglav” (ומחוקק מבין רגליו), “and the lawgiver from between his feet” (49:10), adds up to 611, and “talmidei chachamim” (תלמידי חכמים), “disciples of the wise,” adds up to 612: with the kolel, they match. And “mechokek” (מחקק) adds up to 248, the number of limbs of the human body, according to tradition.

The eighth, in Naftali. “Ayalah shelucha hanoten imrei shafer” (אילה שלוחה הנותן אמרי שפר), “a doe let loose that gives beautiful words” (49:21), adds up to 1737, the same as “vatashar Devorah uVarak ben Avino’am bayom hahu” (ותשר דבורה וברק בן אבינועם ביום ההוא), “and Devorah and Barak son of Avino’am sang on that day”: the Baal HaTurim says that Yaakov was prophesying about the war of Barak, of the tribe of Naftali.

Drash: the teaching of the sages

Rashi, with the Midrash and the Talmud, gathers here the lessons of the sages.

A “closed” portion. This portion, unlike the others, has no blank space before it begins. Rashi asks why and gives two answers: because, when Yaakov died, the eyes and heart of Israel were closed by the anguish of the slavery that began; or because Yaakov wanted to reveal to his sons the end of days, and it was closed to him.

A true kindness. Yaakov asks Yosef: “Deal with me in kindness and truth” (47:29). Rashi says: the kindness done with the dead is a true kindness, because whoever does it expects nothing in return. And he gives the reasons for not being buried in Egypt: that his body not turn into ground for worms, that the dead outside the land of Israel are resurrected only after much suffering, and that the Egyptians not make an idol of him.

Rachel on the road. Yaakov explains to Yosef why he buried Rachel on the road to Efrat and not in Bethlehem: Rashi relates that he did it by Hashem’s command, so that she would help her children when Nevuzaradan led them into exile, and as they passed by there, Rachel would come out of her tomb to weep and plead for compassion for them.

The end that was closed. “Yaakov called his sons and said: gather, and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days” (49:1). Rashi says that he wanted to reveal to them the end of days, but the Presence withdrew from him, and he began to say other things.

All blessed. The text closes the blessing saying that “he blessed them” (49:28). Rashi asks: were there not sons who received only rebukes? And he answers: it says “he blessed them” so that it be understood that all were blessed, for to Yehudah he gave the strength of the lion, to Binyamin that of the wolf and to Naftali the lightness of the deer.

“Am I in the place of God?” When the brothers fear his revenge, Yosef says: “Am I in the place of God?” Rashi reads it as a rhetorical question: if I wanted to do you harm, could I? All of you meant evil against me, and the Holy One meant it for good; how could I alone do you harm?

Sod: what is hidden

The Zohar

The Zohar pauses at the word “And he lived.” Rabbi Yosi says that “the heart sees in prophecy”: in Egypt, Yaakov saw that his sons would pass through several exiles, up to the moment of the end of days, that of the Messiah. And only he and Moshe reached that prophecy. Of Moshe it is written: “No one shall see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20); of Yaakov, “and he lived.” “Vayechi” is a prophecy that descended from the luminous mirror.

The Zohar adds that it was not a joyful prophecy: he saw the exile of his sons in the land of Canaan and in all lands, and his heart was broken from Egypt, as the text says: “there is grain (sheber, “breaking”) in Egypt” (42:1). It is the same idea that Rashi gathers in the “closed” portion.

More weekly commentary in the list of parashiot.