Genesis 48:13

With a son's respect Joseph bowed down before his father. Then he presented the boys according to their ages, so that Jacob's right hand would rest on the head of the elder, as the custom of those days required. At that moment it was Jacob's faith that stood out — a faith that gave him the spirit of prophecy. So he reversed what Joseph had done, and crossing his hands he laid his right hand upon Ephraim and not Manasseh.

He received the name when his hip was put out of joint (Genesis 32). Perhaps never since then did he realize so fully that he had power with God and with men as he did on his dying bed. He had now "no confidence in the flesh." His natural eye was dim, but his faith saw clearly, and he guided his hands knowingly... Joseph, the interpreter of God's ways to Pharaoh, could not in this instance see as clearly as Jacob. It takes a soul trained by experience, as well as a spiritual gift, to see the way of grace clearly.

As a worshipper in the presence of God he learns the mind of God. 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 (verses 13, 14)... His spiritual vision was never brighter than at the moment when his natural vision had become dim with age.

All is grace on God's part, and all is faith in the heart of Jacob. Faith's proper business and duty is 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... 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.

Manasseh means "forgetting" and Ephraim means "fruitful." Joseph gave those names because he was made to forget the natural blessings of his father's house, and then became fruitful in Egypt. But forgetting is negative: fruitfulness is positive, and the positive must take the first place.

The first man and his race are negative toward 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 wholeheartedly agree that the Second Man has displaced the first, and so we turn away from self-seeking to find our all in Christ.

Jacob was clear, where Isaac had been dim. He was clearer even than Joseph, who until then had been given penetrating insight into divine things beyond any other man of God. What deep self-judgment must have filled Israel's heart as he looked back on the blessing he once stole by his own scheming! Could the LORD not, would He not, have crossed Isaac's hands Himself — to His own glory and without His servant's shame — and so made good His promise to Jacob? How sad not to have trusted Him!