With the Jacob/Israel pairing of
verse 24, along with “the tribes of Israel” for Dan in verse 16 and the
geographical range indicated by the seven sayings together, I am inclined to
locate the text in greater Israel, when the kingdom embraced peoples from north
of the Jazreel Valley and east of the Jordan River. Note that Gad is in the
list to represent the east, without Reuben and Manasseh (not a son of Jacob),
and recalling 9th-century reference to Gad in the Mesha inscription. Maachi
dates his set of six to roughly the same period. Note also that Genesis 49
could be invoked to prove that Israel could still identify specially with El
rather than Yahweh. If Yahweh came to be “god of Israel” through the greater
Israel monarchy, then the role of El in Jacob’s sayings would attach more narrowly
to Joseph, who may represent Israel in its older and more modest scope (so “little”).
(Daniel E. Fleming, Yahweh Before Israel: Glimpses of History in a Divine
Name [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021], 118 n. 17, emphasis added)
