Genesis 48:22

After he blessed the sons and promoted the younger ahead of the elder by way of forecasting the future, he wanted to convince Joseph that it was not idly or to no purpose that he had done this but to foretell what was due to happen. So he predicted his own death and the fact that they would return from foreign parts to Canaan, the land of their ancestors, and raised sound hope in them so as to cheer them up with the expectation. The hope of good things to come, after all, always mitigates the troubles of the present life.

ON JACOB'S GIFT TO JOSEPH OF THE LAND OF SHECHEM. — When Jacob tells his son Joseph that he gives him Shechem apart, and adds that he took it with his sword and his bow, one has the right to ask how this can be true to the letter. For he bought this land at the price of one hundred lambs (Gen. 33:19), he did not conquer it by right of victory in a war. Is it perhaps that his sons conquered Salem, the city of the Shechemites (Gen. 34:25), and by law of war became his, so that the war which they did against those who had previously committed such a great injury in the rape of his daughter (Cf. Gen. 34:25-29)? Why did he not give his eldest sons that land, since they had done that? If now, rejoicing in that victory, he gives that land to his son Joseph, why then did the sons who did this act displease him? Why, finally, even now, when he blesses them, he mentions this fact, throwing their conduct against them? It is clear, therefore, that some prophetic mystery is hidden here, for even Joseph prefigured Christ with a principal meaning and was from that land where Jacob had destroyed and annihilated the foreign gods so that it would be understood that Christ would possess the Gentiles, who would renounce the gods of their fathers and believe in him. [

(Verse 22.) And I gave ((Or, do)) to you Sicima, the special one, over your brothers, which I received from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and arrow. Sicima, according to Greek and Latin custom, is declined. Otherwise, in Hebrew it is called Sichem, as John the Evangelist also testifies (IV, 5): although erroneously, it is read as Sichar, the error has prevailed: and now it is the city of Neapolis, the city of the Samaritans. Therefore, because Sichem () is translated into Hebrew as shoulder, he cleverly alluded to the name, saying: And I will give you one shoulder. For it is written specially, that is, in Hebrew. And what he says that he possessed it in a bow and sword: the bow here, and the sword, he calls righteousness, through which he deserved to be delivered from danger as a stranger and sojourner, by slaying Shechem and Hamor. For, as we read above, he feared lest the neighboring cities and castles should rise up against him for the destruction of the federal city (Gen. 34): and the Lord did not permit them to harm him. Certainly, you should understand it this way: I will give you Sichem, which I acquired with my own strength, that is, with money, which I earned with much labor and much sweat. And what he said, surpassing your brothers, shows that it was given to Joseph without any obligation. For indeed, Joseph is buried in the same place, and his tomb can still be seen there today.