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Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Yesterday, we saw Jacob preparing for his death at the age of 147 by asking his son Joseph to make sure he was buried in Canaan, not Egypt. Today, we pick up with Jacob blessing Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh before he dies.
Jacob recounts God's promises to him to give him many offspring and to give them the land of Canaan, and he refers to God by a name we've seen a few times, God Almighty. This is translated from the Hebrew El Shaddai, which loosely means God of the mountains. One of the things we haven't talked about much, but that's really important is that God's names represent his character.
They tell us who he is and what he does. We've got a list of God's names and attributes that we would love to share with you because we really believe they'll help you as you're reading through scripture and looking for your God shot each day. Stay tuned at the end of this episode to find out where to grab that free PDF. Jacob continues his speech to Joseph, and in it, he does a peculiar thing.
He formally adopts Joseph's children as his own, possibly because he was robbed of having Joseph in his life as a young boy, but he'd gotten to spend many years with these children. He compares Joseph's two oldest children to his two oldest children, Reuben and Simeon.
And while this feels a little weird to me, it's actually probably a generous move, a way of establishing that these two boys will receive an inheritance from him along with Joseph's brothers. They will be heirs to the land and the promise. This will continue to come into play in our reading, so make a mental note of it.
Joseph brought the boys to him and positioned Manasseh, the oldest, in front of Jacob's right hand, because that was considered to be the hand of blessing and power. And he positions Ephraim, the youngest, in front of Jacob's left hand. But then Jacob crosses his hands, putting his right hand on Ephraim's head.
Jacob is going blind, just like his dad Isaac was near the end of his days, so Joseph thought maybe he couldn't see what he was doing. But he totally could. He blessed both boys, but he intentionally passed the ruling power of the two boys to the younger brother, Ephraim. We've seen this theme elsewhere, and it continues here. Manasseh will become a people, but Ephraim will become a multitude.
By the way, the angel that Jacob refers to in verse 16 of his blessing, the one who redeemed him from all evil and whom he asked to bless the boys, the original language here gives us lots of clues that he's referring to the angel of the Lord, i.e. God himself. After Jacob has blessed Joseph's sons, he continues his final blessing by gathering his own sons. And boy, does he get precise with them.
His words reflect a lot of the things we've seen happen, as well as some of the things yet to come, some prophecies. You probably remember Reuben, the oldest, who slept with his father's concubine. Jacob retracts his preeminence. The oldest loses his birthright here, just like we saw happen with Ishmael and Esau.
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