Issachar is a strong donkey crouching down between two burdens:
All Commentaries on Genesis 49:14 Go To Genesis 49
Rufinus of Aquileia
AD 411
Above we have taken into consideration that one who erred because of the threefold impulse of the soul (as a weakness of the entire soul), which is divided into carnal passion symbolized by Reuben, into anger symbolized by Simeon and into illdirected prudence symbolized by Levi. But then we have shown this person when he repents in the figure of Judah and is largely converted in the figure of Zebulun. In Issachar, which means “reward,” we see this man wait for the reward of his good works; and since he has not only driven away the evil but has also wished for the good, he rests in the midst of his lots. In the midst is the one who, according to the warning of the Wisdom, turns neither to the left nor the right, that is, who stays and walks on the right path of virtue. Here the “lots” can be interpreted in this manner: “lot” is understood as that which allows people to obtain a part of the inheritance. This does not appear to happen casually, as the pagans think, but is decreed by the judgment and the division of God. Therefore in this moral explanation we must understand the “lots” to be the commandments of God through which the heavenly inheritance will be obtained. So this already converted man hopes in the reward for his actions and rests in the midst of the lots, that is, in the midst of the commandments of God, “seeing that the rest is good and that the land is fertile.” After driving away and suppressing the internal fight of his thoughts, which lasted as long as the flesh in him opposed the desires of the spirit and the spirit those of the flesh, his spirit eventually took rest in God. He has seen that the rest is good, since Jesus could by now say to him, “Come and rest awhile.” But he also sees that the land is good. When did he see that the land is good? When he purified his flesh from vices and passions, he saw that the land was fertile and fruitful …. We must consider him to be a farmer of his land. He is the one who constantly breaks and furrows with the plough of the Word of God and with the ploughshare of Scripture the fields of his soul and the fallow lands of his heart, and waters the plantations of faith, of charity, of hope and justice with the springs of Israel, and employs any method of agriculture in the field of his soul.
