As we have learned from last month’s reading, Joseph called his father Jacob to Egypt to care for him and Joseph’s other brothers and all their families. Joseph establishes the Land of Goshen as the area for the building of the nation of Israel from the family of Jacob.

In Chapter 48, Joseph learns that his farther has become ill in old age. Joseph goes to visit his father, and takes his two sons, Manasseh and Ephram. Upon learning of the arrival of his son and grandsons, Jacob gathers his strength to sit up in his bed (Gen. 48:2).

Jacob recalls the day when God appeared to him and renewed the covenant to bless Jacob’s seed to multiply into a great nation. Jacob claims his two grandsons as if thy are equals to his sons. 48:5.

Jacob announced his blessing upon his two grandsons. 48:9. This blessing is later noted as an act of the great faith of Jacob (see Hebrews 11:21).

In so blessing the two grandsons, Jacob acted in an unusual manner for Joseph. Even though Joseph produced the sons in birth order with Manasseh as the oldest, Jacob gave the traditional first-born blessing to the youngest, Ephraim.

Joseph was displeased by this deliberate act of Jacob (49:17), and he attempted to move Jacob’s right hand from the head of the youngest son and put it on the oldest son. Jacob refused, saying that Manasseh, the oldest, would be blessed as a great nation, but that Ephraim, the youngest, would be greater. Jacob’s words would become evident later as the tribe of Ephraim became a leader of the northern 10 tribes of Israel.

While Jacob’s other children become heads of the eventual tribes of Israel, Joseph’s two sons substitute in for his position among the tribes.

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