But Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid [it] on Ephraim's head -- now he was the younger -- and his left hand on Manasseh's head; guiding his hands intelligently, for Manasseh was the firstborn.
A dying man, almost blind, crosses his arms so that his right hand falls on the younger boy's head instead of the elder's. Two questions follow. What does laying a hand on a head mean? And why does God so often reverse the order that nature has fixed?
In Scripture, placing a hand on someone's head is not an empty gesture. One writer explains it from the offerings brought at the altar:
To put the hand on the head means in Scripture identification. It is to say, "I identify myself with you." We see it in the burnt offering. The offerer identified himself with the value of the sacrifice. In this way he identified himself with all that Christ was to God, in every excellence of His person.
So which hand lands where is the point of the scene. The right hand has its own meaning:
The "right hand" speaks of authority, power, and high standing. According to Exodus 15:6, the power to deliver and to subdue belongs to the right hand. In Genesis 48:14 the right hand gives a blessing that is sovereign and cannot be taken back.
Older translations say Jacob guided his hands "wittingly" — that is, knowingly. The ESV reads "crossing his hands." His eyes had failed; his judgment had not. Shrewdness once served him. Now faith does the seeing.
He now had "no confidence in the flesh." His natural eye was dim, but faith made him clear-sighted, and he guided his hands knowingly. Jacob had used his own shrewdness in many ways in his past life. But now, as his natural powers fade, faith is very keen in discerning the ways of God… It takes a soul trained by experience, as well as a spiritual gift, to see the way of grace clearly.
The shape Jacob's arms make is itself a sign:
The sign of the cross cuts across and reverses natural order and human expectations. We find it here as everywhere… So the shadow of the cross falls on all that follows. It swaps the places of the members of both families, Jacob's and Joseph's. It rejects and selects in a sovereign and final way that sets aside human hopes and rules. It selects Ephraim and Judah, and rejects Manasseh, Reuben, and others. If we are surprised as Joseph was, then the reply is, "I know it, my son, I know it." It is absolute. We must submit whether we understand its action or not.
Jacob does not invent this reversal. He accepts it:
It is the proper business and duty of faith to accept the decisions of grace, and that is just what grace is doing here. Grace adopts the sons of Joseph, who had no title in the flesh, and takes them into the family of Abraham. Grace gives them the place and portion of the firstborn, the double portion, as though they were Reuben and Simeon. Grace sets the younger of them above the elder. … Joseph was moved when Jacob set Ephraim above Manasseh. Jacob feels for him, but he fulfils the word of God given to him, however surprised or wounded nature may be.
The boys' names carry meanings, and the meanings fit the choice:
Ephraim (fruitfulness) comes before Manasseh (forgetting); that is, the positive side of divine things is more important than the negative side.
Later history bore the choice out:
Manasseh's very name had a weak suggestion in it, and his half-hearted descendants fulfilled it. When they came to the Jordan, half of them stopped short and half went on.
Years before, Jacob had schemed to get a blessing his blind father meant for someone else. Now Jacob is the blind father, and he crosses the line on purpose.
Jacob was clear, where Isaac had been dim. Jacob saw more clearly than Joseph, though God had given Joseph sharper insight into divine things than other men until now. What deep self-judgment must have passed through Israel's spirit as he looked back at the blessing he once stole by trickery! Could the Lord not have crossed Isaac's hands Himself, to His own glory and without His servant's shame, to keep His word of promise to Jacob? How sad that Jacob did not trust Him!
The New Testament singles out this one moment in Jacob's life:
This one act of Jacob's life is the only one Hebrews 11 records as an act of faith on Jacob's part… At the end he said what we all ought to say at the beginning: "Not this man here, though he is the eldest born and the first on the scene, but that Man is the man of God's counsel."
- Identify — a hand on the head says, "I am joined to this one." The question is whether your hand is on the right head.
- Right hand — the hand Jacob moved carries authority and power. Here it gives a blessing no one can take back.
- Knowing — his eyes were dim, yet he knew what he was doing. Faith saw what Joseph, walking by sight, could not.
- Crossed — the crossed hands set aside the elder's rights and choose the younger. When nature protests, the answer is, "I know it, my son."
- Faith — the man who once stole a blessing by trickery now bows to God's choice for someone else, and Hebrews calls this his one act of faith.
And he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God that shepherded me all my life long to this day,
Jacob is dying in Egypt, his eyes too dim to see, and he pulls Joseph's two boys close to bless them. Before he says a word over the boys, he names the God he is handing them to. Those names sum up his own long, uneven life.
Jacob ends with nothing but his staff — the same thing he set out with. One writer sees that poverty as the secret of his boldness.
He is a stranger in a strange place. He has his staff to lean on, but he has God for his portion. He had been well stripped of all his confidence along the way. Now he is about to end his life with no more than what he set out with — his staff in his hand. Weighed down with weakness, and fully admitting that he is only a pilgrim, he takes the high place of the one who blesses. He can now bless both the sons of Joseph with far greater confidence than he could have done when he owned earthly riches.
Jacob first names God as the One his father and grandfather walked before. To them God had made Himself known as God Almighty.
This name was a further revelation of Himself. God gave it when Abram was past age and had nothing to lean on but the almightiness, or all-sufficiency, of God (Genesis 17:1). God led him by this name, which declared the sufficiency he needed, and led Isaac and Jacob after him. They were all strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They had nothing but the promise of an Almighty Friend to rest on.
The ESV calls God Jacob's shepherd. Older translations say He "fed me all my life long." Either way, Jacob could only reach this verdict by looking back.
What a wonderful testimony Jacob gives to the faithfulness of God! When Jacob walked by sight, he did not see so clearly that God was feeding him and caring for him. But now, leaning on the top of his staff, he retraces all God's ways by faith.
One writer presses the same daily care on the reader.
Has not God provided generously for you? You never eat a meal without mercy carving for you. You never go to bed without mercy drawing the curtains and setting a guard of angels around you.
Jacob had not always read his life this way.
He has learned that even when the Lord disciplines us, we can give thanks afterwards and say, "You have dealt well with Your servant." Jacob saw this in his own life. In Genesis 42:36 he says, "all these things are against me." In 45:27, "the spirit of Jacob their father revived." Jacob realises that discipline "later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:11). Can you look back and thank the Lord for everything?
Jacob's crossed hands and his words about God come from the same man — one who no longer follows what nature dictates.
As a worshipper in the presence of God he learns the mind of God. He no longer acts as nature would dictate, but as God would direct. He crosses his hands with understanding, putting the right hand on the younger and the left on the elder. Then Jacob blesses Joseph, and does so by blessing his two sons. He speaks of God according to his experience of God. He commends the lads into the hands of the God who shepherded him all the days of his life — the Angel who had redeemed him from all evil. His spiritual sight was never clearer than when his natural sight had grown dim with age.
Jacob is not the hero of his own story.
If any character could have set aside the faithfulness of God, it is Jacob's. Low cunning and crooked scheming marked it from the start, in the way he treated his brother Esau. But this did not interfere at all with God's faithfulness to him. Looking back, he sees — and I do not doubt he sees with joy — the failure of all his scheming and policy. One single thought fills Jacob: the grace and faithfulness of the God he deals with. He was never saved from a single danger by his own policy.
- Stripped — Jacob ends with only his staff. That emptiness is what frees him to take the higher place of the one who blesses.
- Shepherded — while walking by sight he could not see God feeding him. The care was constant; he saw it only looking back.
- Reversed — the man who once said everything was against him now names God as his lifelong provider. Discipline bore its peaceful fruit.
- Instructed — standing before God he learns God's mind, and blesses by that instead of by what nature would choose.
- Faithful — Jacob's scheming never once rescued him, and never once stopped God. His last word is about grace, not achievement.
the Angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named upon them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the land!
Jacob is dying, and his eyes are dim. Before he blesses his two grandsons, he names the God he is handing them over to. That title gathers up a whole lifetime of trouble and rescue: the Angel who redeemed him from all evil.
Jacob is not calling on a created being here. The three lines of verses 15 and 16 describe one God, and the first two titles explain the third.
Here is the whole verse: "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys." The angel was the God of his fathers. Are you unaware that the word "angel" covers all those appearances of God on behalf of His ancient people? Do you not know that Stephen says Moses was with the angel in the bush, who said, "I am who I am"? Do you not know that Hosea says Jacob wrestled with the angel and prevailed? Yet Jacob called the place Peniel, because he had seen God face to face.
The title points back to one meeting in particular.
When Jacob speaks of "the Angel, the Redeemer" (literal translation) he speaks of Jehovah who appeared to him, whom he met face to face at Peniel.
For Jacob, "redeemed" meant rescue from every danger along his path. It offers the same confidence to anyone still on the road.
Redemption for Jacob clearly meant his deliverance from all the dangers and troubles of his winding path. Christians too can count on the strong arm of the Lord. He brings them safely through all the ups and downs of the wilderness God has called them to cross.
Part of that "all" once looked to Jacob like nothing but disaster.
His complaint was, "All these things are against me." And so it indeed appeared. He had yet to learn that all these things were part of God's plan for his ultimate good. That is why, at the end of his life, he could speak of "the angel who has redeemed me from all evil" (Genesis 48:16). The fact was that "all these things" were going to "work together for good," and so give us an effective illustration of the truth of Romans 8:28.
The same man who praised the Redeemer had earlier called his years few and hard.
It is true he received the promise, but his experiences were very different from Abraham's. Although at the end of his life he could say, "the angel who has redeemed me from all evil" (Genesis 48:16), he still had to add, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life." The variety of his experience is a proof of unfaithfulness.
Yet the closing words answer the very first promise God made to him.
The understanding of faith looks over the past and recognises God's presence in keeping and leading. "The God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil." This is faith's answer to the promise given at the outset of his course: "I will never leave you." Guided now by God, he blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, putting the younger first. Flesh put Esau first; faith put Ephraim.
He does not invent a title for the occasion. He blesses out of a lifetime with God.
As a worshipper in God's presence he learns the mind of God. He no longer acts as nature would dictate, but as God would direct... He speaks of God according to his experience of God. It is the God who shepherded him all the days of his life — the Angel who had redeemed him from all evil — into whose hands he commends the lads. His spiritual vision was never brighter than at the moment when his natural vision had grown dim with age.
The second half of the verse asks for two things: a name and growth.
He has claimed them as his own sons, and his request matches that. He asks that his name would rest on them, and the names of Abraham and Isaac. This stresses the continuity of God's blessing on that family. Also, he says, "let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth." This is clearly earthly blessing, having nothing to do with heaven.
- Shepherd. Jacob's first word about God is care that never stopped. This is the God who shepherded him all his life long.
- Redeemer. "All evil" covers every danger on a crooked road. What once looked like everything being against him turned out to work for good.
- Angel. The One who redeemed him is the God of his fathers, met face to face at Peniel. The title confesses God, not a lesser being.
- Blesser. He hands the boys to the God he had proved, and he does it as a worshipper. His eyes were dim, but his sight of God was bright.
- Multitude. He passes on what he received. His name and his fathers' names rest on the boys, and he asks that they grow into a multitude.
When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it was evil in his eyes; and he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.
Joseph watches his father's hands cross over the heads of his two boys. He reaches out to move the right hand back onto Manasseh, the elder. The moment raises a question: who decides who comes first — birth order, or God?
Joseph is not fighting God on purpose. He tries to correct his father because he does not see what Jacob sees.
Joseph lets his natural thoughts rule him. He does not see the sovereignty of God, who blesses according to His own purpose. So he objects to Jacob giving first place to the younger son. Jacob, however, will not give way to Joseph's natural wishes. He knows exactly what he is doing. He can say, "I know it, my son, I know it."
Jacob's eyes were too dim to see the boys. Yet here the roles reverse: the old man reads God's mind, and the gifted son misses it.
Joseph explained God's ways to Pharaoh, yet here he could not see as clearly as Jacob. To see the way of grace clearly, a person needs a soul trained by experience as well as a spiritual gift. Joseph stands far above his father Jacob, both in gift and in moral worth. But Jacob had been well sifted, and had learnt from experience his need of grace. A father's fondness, the right of the firstborn, and things like that can fill the mind even where there is real gift, and gift from God.
The crossed arms are not a slip by a half-blind man. One commentator reads them as a pattern that shows up everywhere.
Joseph brings Manasseh and Ephraim for his blessing, but the old patriarch crosses his hands, and reverses their order in the succession. The sign of the cross cuts across natural order and human expectation and turns them around. We meet it here, as we meet it everywhere. "My thoughts are not your thoughts," God says. He says this not because God's thoughts are meant to stand apart from ours or against ours, but because His thoughts are right and ours are wrong. We look at the little swirls of water; He sees the whole stream.
Joseph's protest is the one wrong note in a chapter that is otherwise all gift. One commentator lists what grace hands out here, piece by piece.
All is grace on God's part, and all is faith in the heart of Jacob. For it is the proper business and duty of faith to accept the decisions of grace, and that is just what grace is doing here. Grace adopts the sons of Joseph, who had no claim of their own by birth, and takes them into the family of Abraham. Grace gives the place and portion of the firstborn, the double portion, as though they were Reuben and Simeon. Grace sets the younger of them above the elder... Nature may resent this; but Jacob is true to the word of grace committed to him.
The boys' names explain why the order had to change. One name stands for the goal; the other stands for the road that leads there.
We find the law of spiritual increase in Joseph, and the name of his son "Ephraim" shows it — "fruitfulness." But the road to fruitfulness runs through "Manasseh" — "forgetfulness." It is the same with the apostle Paul, who wrote, "But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead." Manasseh is the firstborn, in fact. But the end is greater than the means, so in the mind of God Ephraim is greater than Manasseh. Nature in us, as in Joseph here, often resists so simple a conclusion.
Years earlier Jacob had worked to get his own dying father's blessing. Now he blesses over a son's objection, and sees what God would have done without his help.
He now learns that those whom God blesses will be blessed. His grace does not need the help of human strength, and His promise needs no human stamp of approval... Suppose Jacob really had needed his own dying father's blessing to secure the inheritance God had for him. He now sees, as he sets Ephraim above Manasseh despite Joseph, that God could and would have brought that about.
- Nature protests. Joseph's hand moves to correct his father's. That is nature speaking: the claim of the firstborn, felt by a good man who could not see what God was doing.
- Grace decides. Every blessing in this chapter goes to someone with no claim by birth. Faith's whole business is to accept what grace decides.
- The cross reverses. The crossed hands are a sign. God's order cuts across what we expect, not because He is against our thoughts, but because His are right.
- Fruit follows forgetting. Manasseh means forgetting; Ephraim means fruitful. The goal outranks the road to it, so the younger son goes first.
- Faith outsees gift. Jacob's eyes were dim, yet the sifted old man read God's mind. He learned at last that God never needed human help to keep a promise.
And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn put thy right hand on his head.
Near the end of his life Jacob adopts Joseph's two sons and blesses them. But he crosses his hands, laying his right hand on the younger boy. Joseph steps in to correct him. His protest raises the question of the whole chapter: does blessing follow the order of nature, or the choice of God?
Joseph reacts to what his eyes can see. His father is acting by faith.
Genesis 48 gives us another example of the seductive power of what we can see. It is a wonderful thing to see faith, the invisible power, winning in Jacob over everything that marked his earlier up-and-down history. We watch him rise above nature and its claims, as he lays his hands on the head of Ephraim, the younger of Joseph's two sons, guiding his hands knowingly. Yet the snare of the visible is just as clear, seen in Joseph's displeasure and dissatisfaction.
Jacob's eyes were dim with age. That did not make him unsure of what he was doing.
Joseph lets his natural thoughts govern him. He does not discern the sovereignty of God, who blesses according to His purpose. So he protests against Jacob giving first place to the younger son. Jacob, however, will not give way to Joseph's natural wishes. He is perfectly aware of the course he is taking. He can say, "I know it, my son, I know it." He is not only acting according to the mind of God. He is doing it with understanding. His spiritual vision was never brighter than at the moment when his natural vision had become dim with age.
Joseph was the man who had read Pharaoh's dreams.
Joseph, the interpreter of God's ways to Pharaoh, could not in this case see as clearly as Jacob. It needs an exercised soul, as well as a spiritual gift, to see clearly the way of grace. Joseph stands far above his father Jacob, both in gift and in moral worth. But Jacob had been well sifted, and had learned by experience his need of grace. A parent's fondness, the right of the firstborn, and things like these can fill the mind, even where there is a real gift from God.
The crossed hands say where all blessing comes from.
Though Joseph may plead for Manasseh, Jacob puts the blessing on Ephraim. This is God's way: to set the younger above the elder. So all blessing may come through the grace of God, and not through the rights, or the claims, or the efforts of nature. At the end, Jacob's whole boast and confidence is in the sovereign grace of God.
Years earlier Jacob had tricked his own blind father into blessing the younger son. Now he is the blind father.
Jacob was clear where Isaac had been dim. He was clearer even than Joseph, to whom God had given deeper insight into divine things than to any other man of God. What deep self-judgment must have passed through Israel's spirit! He was looking back on the blessing he had once stolen by his own scheming. Could the Lord not have crossed Isaac's hands to make good His promise to Jacob? He could have done it to His own glory, and without His servant's shame. How sad not to have trusted Him!
Each boy's name carries a meaning.
Here we may see a picture that has meaning for us. The name Manasseh means Forgetting, which points in a negative direction. Ephraim means Fruitful, which is positive in character. The first man and his race are negative as regards God, the complete denial of all His thoughts. In Christ, the Second Man, is the Yes and Amen to all God's thoughts, and all fruitfulness is found in Him. He is indeed the Man of God's right hand. It is a great day in the spiritual history of each of us when we gladly agree that the Second Man has displaced the first. Then we turn away from self-seeking to find our all in Christ.
Joseph's protest is the reaction most of us have when God's order cuts across our own.
If we are surprised as Joseph was, the reply is, "I know it, my son, I know it." That answer is absolute. We must submit whether we understand how it works or not. At the same time, later events often show us wise reasons for what seemed strange in that action.
- Sight. Jacob's eyes were dim, yet he saw more clearly than Joseph. Faith sees best when sight fails.
- Gift. Joseph had the greater gift. But reading the way of grace takes an exercised soul, not talent.
- Grace. The right hand went to the younger so that blessing would rest on God's grace, not on the rights or efforts of nature.
- Christ. Forgetting gives way to Fruitful. The Second Man displaces the first, and we find all our fruitfulness in Him.
- Submission. When God's order surprises us, the answer stands — "I know it, my son" — and we submit before we understand.
But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know he also will become a people, and he also will be great; but truly his younger brother will be greater than he; and his seed will become the fulness of nations.
Jacob is dying and his eyes are too weak to see, yet he lays his right hand on Joseph's younger son and will not move it when Joseph objects. He promises Manasseh real greatness, then puts the younger brother above him — and the usual rights of the firstborn fall away.
Joseph assumed his father had made a mistake. The threefold repetition — refusing, then affirming, then explaining — shows a man acting with full awareness, at the very moment his physical sight had failed.
He acts no longer as nature would direct, but as God would direct. He crosses his hands "intelligently," placing the right hand on the younger and the left hand on the elder. … Joseph lets his natural thoughts govern him. He does not see the sovereignty of God, who blesses according to His purpose. So he protests against Jacob giving the first place to the younger son. Jacob, however, will not give way to Joseph's natural wishes. He is perfectly aware of the course he is taking. He can say, "I know, my son, I know." He is acting according to the mind of God, and he is doing so with understanding. His spiritual vision was never brighter than at the moment when his natural sight had grown dim with age.
The choice was not Jacob's preference. Everything given in this chapter — the adoption of two Egyptian-born boys, the double portion, the reversal of the order — comes from outside the claims of birth.
It is all grace on God's part, and all faith in the heart of Jacob. The proper business and duty of faith is to accept the decisions of grace. That is just what grace is doing here. Grace adopts the sons of Joseph, who had no title in the flesh, and takes them into the family of Abraham. Grace gives the place and portion of the firstborn, the double portion, as though they were Reuben and Simeon. Grace sets the younger of them above the elder. To all this Jacob bows and is obedient. Nature may resent this; but Jacob is true to the word of grace committed to him.
Ephraim was not the only younger son lifted above an elder. Reuben, the actual firstborn, lost his place too.
But God's ways are the opposite of ours, and all human greatness and pride must be humbled. Ephraim's precedence shows this. He was the younger, yet he was put over the elder, just as Reuben the firstborn lost his place. This emphasised God's sovereignty, which lifts up the lowly and brings down the high.
The names themselves carry the reason. Joseph named his firstborn for what God had taken away from him, and his second for what God had produced in him.
Manasseh means "forgetting" and Ephraim means "fruitful." Joseph was made to forget the natural blessings of his father's house, and then he became fruitful in Egypt. But forgetting is negative and fruitfulness is positive, and the positive must take the first place. Jacob says that Manasseh would become great, but Ephraim would be greater than he. Both are blessed, but Ephraim is set before Manasseh.
The wording here differs from the promise given earlier in the chapter, and that difference matters for how the promise was worked out among the tribes.
It is worth noting the unusual phrase in verse 19: not "a multitude of peoples" but "a fullness of nations." … It is well known that Judah and Benjamin had a place of their own, while all the rest of the tribes fell under Ephraim as Israel.
Commentators differ over how wide "nations" reaches. One reading keeps it inside Israel rather than extending it to foreign peoples:
The multitude of nations shall be to Ephraim, not to Manasseh. I am inclined to believe it is the mass of Israel's tribes, but the whole body of the peoples of Israel was counted to Ephraim.
The reversal did not stop with two boys. It ran through both families, and it was not open to appeal.
- Dim eyes, clear sight — Jacob's eyes had failed, but he had never seen more clearly. He crossed his hands on purpose, not by mistake.
- Grace, not birth — the two boys had no claim by birth. Adoption, the double portion and the reversal all came from grace, and faith's work was to accept it.
- The lowly lifted — the younger goes above the elder, and Reuben the firstborn loses his place. God humbles human pride and shows His sovereignty.
- Fruitful over forgetting — Manasseh's name means forgetting, Ephraim's means fruitful, and fruitfulness takes first place.
- Fullness of nations — the rest of Israel's tribes came under Ephraim's name, so the promise held. The choice was final, and we submit to it even where we cannot explain it.
And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee will Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh! And he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
Jacob's last blessing on Joseph's sons was not a private wish. It became a public formula. From that day on, Israel would bless its own children by naming these two boys. The verse also settles the drama of the crossed hands: Jacob put the younger boy first.
Jacob's eyesight is failing, but his spiritual sight is not. He holds his course even when his beloved son objects.
He acts no longer as nature would dictate, but as God would direct. He crosses his hands "intelligently," placing the right hand on the younger and the left hand on the elder... Joseph lets his natural thoughts rule him. He does not see the sovereignty of God, who blesses according to His own purpose. So he objects when Jacob gives first place to the younger son. Jacob, however, will not give way to Joseph's natural wishes. He knows exactly what he is doing. He can say, "I know, my son, I know." His spiritual vision was never brighter than at the moment when his natural vision had become dim with age.
Everything here is given, not earned. The boys had no claim by birth. Jacob's part is to agree with what God has decided.
All is grace on God's part, and all is faith in the heart of Jacob. The proper work and duty of faith is to accept the decisions of grace. That is just what grace is doing here. Grace adopts the sons of Joseph, who had no title in the flesh, and takes them into the family of Abraham. Grace gives them the firstborn's place and portion — the double portion — as if they were Reuben and Simeon. Grace sets the younger of them above the elder... Nature may resent this; but Jacob is true to the word of grace committed to him.
The order makes sense once you read the names.
The name Manasseh means Forgetting, which is negative. Ephraim means Fruitful, which is clearly positive. The first man and his race are negative toward God. They are the complete denial of all His thoughts. In Christ, the Second Man, is the Yes and Amen to all God's thoughts, and all fruitfulness is found in Him. He is indeed the Man of God's right hand.
Another writer links the same two names to Paul's words about the past.
We find the law of spiritual increase in him, shown by the name of his son "Ephraim" — "fruitfulness." But the way to fruitfulness runs through "Manasseh" — "forgetfulness." It was the same with the apostle: "forgetting what lies behind ... I press on." Manasseh is in fact the first-born. But the end is greater than the means, so Ephraim is greater than Manasseh in the mind of God. Nature often resists such a simple conclusion in us, as it did in Joseph here.
Jacob had once obtained a father's blessing by trickery, taking advantage of a blind old man. Now he is the blind father himself, and this time there is no trick.
Jacob saw clearly, where Isaac had been dim. Jacob saw more clearly than Joseph, who until then had been given sharper insight into divine things than other men of God. What deep self-judgment must have gone through Israel's spirit, as he looked back on the blessing he had once stolen by his own trickery! Could the Lord not have crossed Isaac's hands Himself, to His own glory and without shaming His servant, and so kept His word of promise to Jacob? How sad that Jacob did not trust Him!
The words spoken over these grandsons had a national outcome.
The wealth that went with the birthright went to Joseph, the first son of Rachel, the loved wife. The first-born had a right to a double portion of the inheritance. Or rather, that wealth went to Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph's sons. Jacob had already blessed them and more or less adopted them as his own sons. So Ephraim and Manasseh gained a place of their own among the tribes of Israel.
- Faith sees. Jacob's eyes were dim, but he crossed his hands on purpose. His spiritual sight was sharpest when his eyesight was gone.
- Grace chooses. The boys had no natural claim. Their adoption, their double portion, and the younger set above the elder are all decisions of grace.
- Faith agrees. Joseph pushed back out of natural affection. Jacob's answer, "I know, my son, I know," is faith accepting what grace has decided.
- The names teach. Manasseh means "forgetting," Ephraim means "fruitful." Forgetting is the means, fruitfulness is the end — and God puts the end first.
- Israel repeats it. One old man's words over two grandsons became the nation's own form of blessing. They also gave Ephraim and Manasseh a tribal place of their own.
And Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I die; and God will be with you, and bring you again to the land of your fathers.
Jacob's life ends far from home, in Egypt, with Joseph and two grandsons at his bedside. His last words to Joseph are not about what he leaves behind. They are about who goes with his sons after he is gone.
Jacob states his death plainly, without alarm. One writer asks what a dying man still has to stand on:
Jacob was dying. He says boldly, "Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you." He speaks of death while "leaning on the top of his staff." It is as if he were still on his pilgrim journey, about to move from one place to another. God is the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac. He is still in covenant with them. He has never dissolved His relationship with them, but is unchangeable towards them in it. Death would not dissolve his relationship to God, even "the God of Bethel." He had not received the promises in his lifetime, but he embraced them so firmly that he could count on God making everything good in resurrection. "He is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him."
The staff phrase is from Hebrews 11:21; the ESV reads "bowing in worship over the head of his staff."
Everything turns on two words. Jacob had spent his life arranging outcomes for himself; here the arranging stops.
In this verse we hear the accents of faith. Israel knew that he was about to die, but his eye was lifted from himself to God. He had done much scheming in his time. But now he recognised that the only thing that really mattered was the presence and purpose of God. It did not matter what he himself had been, or what his sons would prove themselves to be. God would be true to them, and true to His purpose to give them the land He had promised. In the end, God and His word held Israel's soul steady. We will be happy if we find, long before the end of life's journey, that stability and security are there, and only there.
The promise is not wishful thinking. Jacob hands his sons a God he has tested — in blessing, in grief, and in what looked like disaster:
God had blessed Jacob at the beginning. He had held him up in his great sorrow when Rachel died. He had made what seemed to be his greatest disaster work for rich blessing. That same God would be with the sons of Jacob after their father had left them. Jacob had good reason for his confidence in God. His sons could rely on the God of Jacob, who had brought their father safely through his many trials.
Earlier in his life, Jacob had prayed to the God of his father and grandfather. One writer contrasts that distance with the ease of his dying words:
Notice how he addresses the Lord: "O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac." He could not say "my God." He was not near enough to Him at that time. But when he was dying, he was near enough to say it. Then he turned and said to Joseph, "Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you." He knew Him, and was at home with Him then. Jacob was in a very different state of soul on his deathbed.
Jacob's wealth is his faith, and he hands it on. Another man of faith said goodbye in the same way, to the elders of the church at Ephesus:
And what a blessing the lads got from the dying pilgrim. There was great faith in Jacob, to be able, in holy confidence of soul, to transfer the blessing from himself to them. He was "rich in faith" himself, and left his riches to Joseph and his sons. "Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers." Another pilgrim who was "rich in faith" spoke in the same way to the elders of Ephesus. He told them they would not see his face again, but said, "I commend you to God."
Jacob promises his sons a land he never lived in himself. One writer explains how a man can hold a blessing he never saw:
Jacob did not say, "Because I have not lived in the land, I have not got the blessing." No! he had it by faith. "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." God is always the same to faith. Faith raises us above all human thoughts, and gives us rest in God.
- I am about to die — Jacob names his death calmly. It is the next step of a pilgrim's journey, not the end of his tie to God.
- But God — the turn of the verse. A lifelong schemer rests everything on God's presence and purpose, not on his own plans.
- With you — he leaves his sons the God he has tested himself, through sorrow, loss and seeming disaster.
- Again to the land — the promise outlives the man. He dies holding a land he never lived in, because faith keeps what it has not yet received.
- Passed on — his riches were in God, so he could hand them on whole, just as another pilgrim later commended the elders at Ephesus to God.
And *I* have given to thee one tract [of land] above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.
Jacob's last words to Joseph hand over property, not a blessing: one strip of land in Canaan, given by a dying man in Egypt. Two questions follow: why does Joseph get it, and when did Jacob ever fight the Amorites for it?
Where the ESV reads "one mountain slope," older translations read "one portion above your brothers." One writer ties that phrase to the legal share of an eldest son:
"A double portion" refers to the share of a firstborn or eldest heir. So in Genesis 48:22, Israel says to Joseph, "I have given to you one portion above your brothers." Joseph received the birthright of Reuben (1 Chronicles 5:1-2). Deuteronomy 21:17 can be compared too. A similar Hebrew phrase occurs there, and the sense is beyond question a double portion compared with what other heirs might get.
Reuben's birthright was not handed on in one piece. It was split:
The position linked with the birthright went to Judah, the fourth son of Leah. The wealth linked with it went to Joseph, the first son of Rachel, the loved one. The firstborn had a right to a double portion of the inheritance. Or rather it went to Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob had already blessed them and more or less adopted them as his own sons.
One writer sees the gift as earned, and the ground itself as a sample of the larger inheritance:
It is easy for us to say that Joseph earned the birthright. Judah earned the royalty, Levi the priesthood, and so Joseph the double portion. His father gave him a pledge, a down payment on the inheritance, and it was characteristic of that inheritance. It was a sample as well. It spoke of the inheritance as it would be in Joseph's hand. This portion had been won, and so had Joseph's. Jacob's sword had gained this piece of ground, as Joseph's patience had gained the inheritance and the birthright.
Other passages name the same plot. But the earlier record of how Jacob got it does not read like a battle:
The last verse of the chapter seems to refer to an event not recorded before. We read of "the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph" (John 4:5), and Joshua 24:32 seems to refer to this gift as well. If so, we must identify it with the deal recorded in Genesis 33:19. That stands close to the violent action of his sons Simeon and Levi, yet nothing there says anything about a sword and bow in Jacob's hands. Still, Jacob gained a portion in the land by conflict as well as by purchase, and he gave it to Joseph. Joseph became lord of that little piece of the land as well as lord of all Egypt. It was a kind of foretaste and pledge that in the end the whole land would be theirs.
Commentators differ on how to fill that silence. One lets it stand as an unrecorded conquest, and looks at what it meant for Joseph:
He reminds Joseph again that he had given him a portion double to that of his brothers. He speaks of taking it by conquest from the Amorites, the enemies inside the land of Canaan, though we have no record of such warfare. But the sufferer, Joseph, is well repaid for all the affliction he had seen.
Another writer looks at how Jacob had got land earlier — by paying men for what God had given him:
Jacob buys a place to live in. He buys from man what God had given him. He had acted the same way before, getting God's gift of grace and Isaac's blessing by craft. He gives up the rights of God, and even denies them, so that he can buy it back for himself.
The strangest feature of the verse is the setting. Jacob is nowhere near the property he is signing over:
The only material thing mentioned in this chapter is the portion he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite, with his sword and his bow (v. 22). But Jacob is not in the land of the Amorite now. He does not actually hold it.
What makes the bequest solid is not a title deed but a relationship that death cannot cancel:
Jacob had faith in God. Death would not end his relationship with God, even "the God of Bethel." Like his fathers, he "died in faith, not having received the promises" (Hebrews 11:13). But he had so "embraced them" that he could count on God making everything good in resurrection.
- Forfeited. Reuben lost the firstborn's right. Joseph received it, and this verse speaks the language of a firstborn's double share.
- Divided. Rule went to Judah. The double portion of wealth went to Joseph, and then to his sons Ephraim and Manasseh.
- Earned. One writer sees the gift as reward: Joseph gained the inheritance by patience, as Jacob gained this ground by the sword.
- Pledge. The small plot is a down payment: one strip held now, the whole land promised later.
- Trusted. Jacob signs away land he is not standing on. He counts on a God whose promises outlast death.