Genesis 47:31
The Top of His Staff
One letter or one vowelQuoted by the apostles in Hebrews 11:21, in the older Greek wording
Hebrews puts a staff in Jacob’s hand. Your Genesis puts him on a bed. The Hebrew letters are the same.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
And he said, Swear to me; and he swore to him. And Israel did reverence, leaning on the top of his staff.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.
Quoted in Hebrews 11:21
The apostle’s Old Testament
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Your KJV reads: “bed’s head” in Genesis with the Masoretic, then “top of his staff” in Hebrews with the Greek.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.
Genesis 47:31 KJV
Jacob is old and near death in Egypt. Joseph has just sworn to carry his body home to Canaan. In the King James, Israel then bows himself on the head of his bed.
What the Older Text Says
And Israel did reverence, leaning on the top of his staff.
Genesis 47:31, Septuagint
In the Greek, there is no bed. Jacob leans on his staff and bows. Hebrews 11:21 quotes this very wording when it names Jacob among the faithful. A reader who turns back to Genesis in the King James finds a bed instead.
What Changed
Not one letter was changed. The Hebrew word has only three letters. Read as mittah, it means bed. Read as matteh, it means staff.
Hebrew was first written with no vowels. The reader supplied them from memory. The little vowel marks in the Masoretic text were added by scribes centuries after the cross. The Greek translators, reading long before those marks existed, heard “staff.” The later scribes wrote in the vowels for “bed.”
Which One Is Right?
The Greek Bible, made before Messiah, reads staff.
Hebrews 11:21 reads staff.
The Masoretic text, with vowel marks added centuries later, reads bed.
The letters on the page are the same in all three. Only the sounds written over them differ, and the two oldest witnesses agree.
Why the Staff Matters
The staff was Jacob’s mark as a pilgrim. He crossed the Jordan with nothing else: “for with my staff I passed over this Jordan” (Genesis 32:10). Now, dying in Egypt, he leans on that same staff and bows, having just made Joseph swear to bury him in the land of promise.
Hebrews says these fathers “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). A man on his bed is resting. A man on his staff is still traveling.
Purpose of the Change
No motive can be proven here; this is a matter of vowels. The effect is that the pilgrim’s staff drops out of Genesis, and the apostle appears to quote a word the Hebrew Bible no longer shows.
The Bottom Line
The letters allow both. The apostle, reading before the vowels were written in, says staff.
Leaning on that staff, Jacob blessed the two sons of Joseph. At the end of the Book, Joseph’s house stands among the sealed: “Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand” (Revelation 7:8).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
The Three Letters
The word is written מטה. With one set of vowels it is mittah, bed. With another it is matteh, staff or rod. Nothing on the page tells them apart. Only the reader’s voice does, and later, the marks the Masoretic scribes added.
Staff Also Means Tribe
Matteh is also the common Hebrew word for a tribe of Israel, because each tribe was marked by the rod of its head (Numbers 17:2–3). Jacob leans on his staff in the very scene where he is about to make Joseph’s two sons into two tribes. The staff fits the story.
Joseph Kept the Same Hope
Hebrews goes straight from Jacob to Joseph: “By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones” (Hebrews 11:22). Father and son both died in Egypt with their eyes on the land of promise.
An Honest Note
The bed reading is not foolish. The next chapter says Israel “sat upon the bed” (Genesis 48:2), and King David “bowed himself upon the bed” (1 Kings 1:47). This is a vowel choice, not a rewritten text. The point is not that scribes forged a word. The point is that when the letters allow both, the reading the apostle used is the one the later vowels left out.