Gen 49:22 is sometimes used as a "proof-text" by Latter-day Saints in favour of the Book of Mormon (see, for e.g., Genesis 49:22 and the Book of Mormon, which reproduces the arguments found in Diane E. Wirth, A Challenge to the Critics: Scholarly Evidences of the Book of Mormon [Bountiful, Utah: Horizon Publishers and Distributors, Inc., 1986], 116-18). In his Ancient Texts and Mormonism, Eugene Seaich wrote the following which implicitly argues against this common LDS reading:
Because of his immense procreative
capacity, El was commonly called ‘abir or tr, “Bull,” a
well-known Neolithic and general Near Eastern symbol for masculine potency,
which Jacob attached to his God, the “God of the father.” It is in fact
probable that the name “Mighty One” (‘abir) of Jacob,” and was only
later revocalized because of Yahwist antipathy to the surrounding bull-cults. (Eugene
Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism, 6 vols. [3d ed.; Salt Lake City,
Ronald W. Gibson, 2014], 2:58)
. . . The oldest material about Joseph
also transfers the divine attribute to the Israelite hero. The same Genesis
passage (49:22-26) probably refers to him as “a young bull, a young bull at a
spring, wild asses at Shur” (T. J. Meek, Hebrew Origins, 138). The KJV
reading (“Joseph as a fruitful bough . . .”), on the other hand, is mistakenly
based on a force reading of the last clause of vs. 22 (“whose branches run over
the wall”) in the Masoretic text, which makes the first element of the
construct, bnwt ts dh, serve as “shoots” or “branches” (bnw) (literally means “daughters”), and the second as a verbal stem meaning “to
climb over.” In fact, the construct was a well-known expression meaning simply “wild
asses” (A. E. Speiser, Anchor Bible, Genesis, 368). By analogy, the KJV
reads bnw prt in the first clause of vs. 22 as “a fruitful bough”
because of its similarity to bnw prh, “to be a fruitful son” (ibid.,
367-8). (Ibid, 2:58 n. 275)
