Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.”
Joseph names his firstborn at the height of his power in Egypt. The pit, the slavery and the prison lie years behind him. The name he picks says who ended their hold on him: God, not time. Commentators read the name along two lines: what it says about Joseph as a picture of Christ, and what it asks of anyone who wants their past to lose its grip.
The Name
"Manasseh" is a word about memory, and Joseph puts God behind it. Both sons' names show what their father felt as God raised him high, far from his own people. One writer compares them with the names Moses gave his sons.
William KellyManasseh means "causing to forget," as Ephraim means "fruitfulness"; and they show their father's feelings during his remarkable rise to honour outside Israel, for blessing. The names Moses gave his sons do not speak of forgetting his brothers. They speak of his sense of being a stranger, cut off from them, and counting on "God my help." Both meet in perfection in our Lord Jesus.
How The Forgetting Works
This is not the wiping of a memory but the loss of its pull. One writer argues that nobody forgets his background until something better has taken hold of him.
W. T. TurpinNo one can truly say that he forgets "his father's house" until his heart has found a treasure in a brighter scene. Then wherever he is in body becomes the land of exile to him. Yet he has no wish to go back to the past. He forgets it... It is a wonderful freedom for a man when what he has found and now holds in heaven puts into the shade, into obscurity and forgetfulness, all the natural pride of birth and family line tied to our "father's house."
The Rejected Son And His New Family
Joseph builds a family in Egypt while his brothers know nothing of his glory. One writer sees Christ here, set apart with a heavenly bride, and says His seeming forgetfulness toward Israel is no change of mind.
Frederick W. GrantFor His Church, His heavenly bride, He has been content to be as if He did not remember His relationship with His people of old. The thread of prophecy lies unwoven on the loom of time, as if its wheel had stopped forever. What does this attitude of forgetfulness mean, on the part of Him who never slumbers or sleeps? Surely no change. He is carrying out eternal purposes. When those purposes are complete, Israel will look on the face of Him whom they pierced, and a fountain will be opened to them also for sin and for uncleanness.
Toil Repaid
The name also looks at what the suffering produced. Joseph's toil did not vanish; it found its answer in a harvest. (Where the ESV says "hardship," older translations say "toil," the word these writers use.)
Hamilton SmithRejected by his brothers, his path had been one of suffering and toil, but Joseph has his great reward and becomes fruitful in the land of his affliction. Nor is it otherwise with Christ... His "toil" has its glorious answer in a great harvest of souls gathered out of the world during the time of His rejection by Israel. The time when He is "forgotten" by Israel is the time when He gathers fruit among the Gentiles.
Forgetting That Runs Forward
Taken by itself, forgetting achieves nothing. One writer ties the name to the runner in Philippians and refuses to let it become mere self-denial.
Frederick W. Grant"Forgetfulness" is only negative when it stands alone: as a means to an end it must be tied to that end and ruled by it, to have its proper character... So "to me to live is Christ," from the man who declared himself a Manassite, "forgetting what lies behind" (Phil. 1:21; Phil. 3:13). It was not self-denial for its own sake; it was absorption: counting all things "as rubbish" to "gain Christ" (Phil. 3:8).
Why The Second Son Matters
Manasseh never stands alone in the chapter. The order of the two names carries the lesson.
L. M. GrantThis is a picture of the truth of Christianity. It makes us forget the first creation, with its natural relationships and its irritating trials. But that is because it brought in something better: the new creation, of which Christ is the Head. The name of Joseph's second son, Ephraim, which means "fruitful," carries this... Manasseh therefore implies the negative side of the truth, Ephraim the positive.
The Cost Of Such A Name
Neither name came out of comfort. The road to this testimony ran through Joseph's worst years.
W. T. TurpinIt required both the pit and the prison to develop and mature this testimony of Joseph. And is it not so with His saints now? Can there be either forgetfulness or fruitfulness, except as death does its work in us?
Summary
- Pit — suffering formed the testimony; the pit and the prison came before the naming.
- God — Joseph credits the forgetting to God, not to success or the passing of years.
- Forgetting — the name means "causing to forget." A better treasure empties the old one of its power.
- Fruit — forgetting is only the negative half. Ephraim, "fruitful," is the point it serves, and Christ gathers His harvest while Israel rejects Him.
- Return — the forgetting only looks final. When God completes His purpose, Israel will look on the One they pierced.