The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains: Skinner calls the expression the blessings of your father are mighty beyond “absolutely unintelligible.” Anchor Bible says the entire sentence is “hopeless on more than one count” and gives a number of reasons why he believes this to be the case. Good News Translation “Blessings of grain and flowers,” as its footnote shows, follows a change of the Hebrew text. Hebrew Old Testament Text Project rejects this change, saying it “might represent the original text, but it is not attested by any old text witness. Therefore it is only a conjecture [a guess] resting on no textual basis.” Accordingly Hebrew Old Testament Text Project keeps the Hebrew text and supports the rendering of Revised Standard Version.
The translation suggested by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project and followed by Revised Standard Version is a rendering that follows the Hebrew text without resorting to the ancient versions or to conjectures. The sense thus far, according to Driver, is that the blessings Jacob received from his ancestors are greater than the blessings that come from the eternal mountains. We may translate, for example, “The blessings that your father received from his ancestors are greater than the blessings that come from the everlasting mountains.” We may change the pronouns to say, for example, “The blessings that my fathers gave me are greater than the good things we receive from the eternal hills.” We cannot dismiss the possibility, however, that blessings of your father may also be understood as the blessings or benedictions given by Jacob to his offspring. Some translations express mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains as “the good things you receive will be so many that they cover over the big mountains.”
The bounties of the everlasting hills: this line repeats closely what was said in the previous line. Bounties translates a word meaning “good things,” things that are desirable in the good sense. See Good News Translation “delightful things.”
May they be on the head of Joseph: Jacob asks that these blessings be given to Joseph. The expression is, however, poetic and comes from the custom of placing one’s hands on the head of the person being blessed; these blessings are thus expressed as resting on his head. If the figure of blessings resting on the head is unnatural, it may be necessary to say, for example, “May these blessings come to Joseph,” or “May Joseph receive these blessings [good things],” or “May God give Joseph these blessings.”
And on the brow of him who was separate from his brothers: brow is used in the second line as a particular part of the head, in keeping with poetic parallelism. Brow refers to the forehead. Separate translates the Hebrew term that is also used to designate a “nazirite.” This does not emphasize physical separation but rather separation for a special purpose: “dedicated from among his brothers” (New Jerusalem Bible). Laws describing how a nazirite was to mark his separation and dedication are set forth in Num 6.1-21. The word also means “prince” and is used in that sense in Lam 4.7. If Good News Translation “set apart from his brothers” is not suitable, it may be possible to say, for example, “who was made the leader of his brothers.” New International Version and Revised English Bible have “the prince among his brothers.”
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .