JOSEPH #26 | JOSEPH IN EGYPT #8 | JACOB BLESSES JOSEPH'S SONS: EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH.

Pastor Christopher Choo

Lesson 3622

JOSEPH #26

 

JOSEPH IN EGYPT #8
JACOB BLESSES JOSEPH'S SONS: EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH.

In Genesis 48:3, Joseph brings his two sons - the elder Manasseh and the younger Ephraim - to his dying father Jacob so that they can receive the family blessing. 

According to tradition, the eldest son is blessed with the patriarch’s right hand. However, Jacob deliberately crossed his arms and put his right hand on Ephraim’s (the younger son’s) head and his left hand on Manasseh’s (the oldest son’s) head.

Joseph was displeased and thought that his father was making a mistake. When Joseph tried to correct his father, Jacob refused and told Joseph that he was purposefully blessing the younger son.

There are many spiritual lessons to learn from this familial scene:

1. The greatest legacy that a father can leave his children is the knowledge of the Fear of the Lord,

i.e. to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of our Lord God. 

This is precisely what Jacob leaves behind for all his children - a spiritual legacy.

2. Jacob said Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are his.

Now Reuben and Simeon are his real children. So what he is saying is that I am adopting Manasseh and Ephraim and I am making them my children just as Reuben and Simeon are my children. 

In other words, they are going to become one of the leaders of the Tribes of Israel.

3. This last picture of Jacob with "crossed" hands, blessing the one that surprisingly is not the firstborn, gives us a vivid picture of the fact that there is no blessing that comes to us apart from the grace of God through the Cross of Jesus Christ. 

Symbolically he "crosses" his hands in token of the fact that it is by the Cross that our natural tendency to sin is rejected and that grace comes to those who bow before the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledge their sin, and receive the free gift of forgiveness, righteous standing before the Lord. 

This is not a legal fiction but a biblical divine truth.

The Bible says that Jacob laid his hands crosswise. The Hebrew verb used here — SAKAL — is a form that most lexicographers define as “to lay crosswise”.

4. Jacob near death has a chance to redeem himself. He was like Ephraim the younger son. But this time there was no subterfuge nor deception involved in bestowing the blessing of the firstborn upon the younger. At last, he obediently followed the divine leading of the Holy Spirit. Truly Jacob the Supplanter had become Israel - the Prince of God.

5. Joseph as a witness was given an objective lesson in God's mysterious ways which is beyond our natural intelligence or traditions of men.

He was also given a prophetic blessing that God   "will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers. Moreover I have given you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow " ( Gen.48:22 ).