48:5 “Now, as for your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they will be mine. 1 Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are.
48:15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked –
the God who has been my shepherd 5
all my life long to this day,
48:16 the Angel 6 who has protected me 7
from all harm –
bless these boys.
May my name be named in them, 8
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.
May they grow into a multitude on the earth.”
48:17 When Joseph saw that his father placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him. 9 So he took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 48:18 Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.”
48:19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He too will become a nation and he too will become great. In spite of this, his younger brother will be even greater and his descendants will become a multitude 10 of nations.” 48:20 So he blessed them that day, saying,
“By you 11 will Israel bless, 12 saying,
‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’”
So he put Ephraim before Manasseh. 13
49:22 Joseph is a fruitful bough, 14
a fruitful bough near a spring
whose branches 15 climb over the wall.
49:23 The archers will attack him, 16
they will shoot at him and oppose him.
49:24 But his bow will remain steady,
and his hands 17 will be skillful;
because of the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
because of 18 the Shepherd, the Rock 19 of Israel,
49:25 because of the God of your father,
who will help you, 20
because of the sovereign God, 21
who will bless you 22
with blessings from the sky above,
blessings from the deep that lies below,
and blessings of the breasts and womb. 23
49:26 The blessings of your father are greater
than 24 the blessings of the eternal mountains 25
or the desirable things of the age-old hills.
They will be on the head of Joseph
and on the brow of the prince of his brothers. 26
1 sn They will be mine. Jacob is here adopting his two grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim as his sons, and so they will have equal share with the other brothers. They will be in the place of Joseph and Levi (who will become a priestly tribe) in the settlement of the land. See I. Mendelsohn, “A Ugaritic Parallel to the Adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh,” IEJ (1959): 180-83.
2 tn Heb “my.”
3 tn Heb “and he”; the referent (Joseph’s father) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn The cohortative with prefixed vav (ו) indicates purpose after the imperative.
5 tn Heb “shepherded me.” The verb has been translated as an English noun for stylistic reasons.
6 sn The Samaritan Pentateuch reads “king” here, but the traditional reading (“angel”) may be maintained. Jacob closely associates God with an angelic protective presence. This does not mean that Jacob viewed his God as a mere angel, but it does suggest that he was aware of an angelic presence sent by God to protect him. Here he so closely associates the two that they become virtually indistinguishable. In this culture messengers typically carried the authority of the one who sent them and could even be addressed as such. Perhaps Jacob thought that the divine blessing would be mediated through this angelic messenger.
7 tn The verb גָּאַל (ga’al) has the basic idea of “protect” as a near relative might do. It is used for buying someone out of bondage, marrying a deceased brother’s widow, paying off debts, avenging the family, and the like. The meanings of “deliver, protect, avenge” are most fitting when God is the subject (see A. R. Johnson, “The Primary Meaning of √גאל,” Congress Volume: Copenhagen, 1953 [VTSup], 67-77).
8 tn Or “be recalled through them.”
9 tn Heb “it was bad in his eyes.”
10 tn Heb “fullness.”
11 tn The pronoun is singular in the Hebrew text, apparently elevating Ephraim as the more prominent of the two. Note, however, that both are named in the blessing formula that follows.
12 tn Or “pronounce a blessing.”
13 sn On the elevation of Ephraim over Manasseh see E. C. Kingsbury, “He Set Ephraim Before Manasseh,” HUCA 38 (1967): 129-36; H. Mowvley, “The Concept and Content of ‘Blessing’ in the Old Testament,” BT 16 (1965): 74-80; and I. Mendelsohn, “On the Preferential Status of the Eldest Son,” BASOR 156 (1959): 38-40.
14 tn The Hebrew text appears to mean “[is] a son of fruitfulness.” The second word is an active participle, feminine singular, from the verb פָּרָה (parah, “to be fruitful”). The translation “bough” is employed for בֵּן (ben, elsewhere typically “son”) because Joseph is pictured as a healthy and fruitful vine growing by the wall. But there are difficulties with this interpretation. The word “son” nowhere else refers to a plant and the noun translated “branches” (Heb “daughters”) in the third line is a plural form whereas its verb is singular. In the other oracles of Gen 49 an animal is used for comparison and not a plant, leading some to translate the opening phrase בֵּן פָּרָה (ben parah, “fruitful bough”) as “wild donkey” (JPS, NAB). Various other interpretations involving more radical emendation of the text have also been offered.
15 tn Heb “daughters.”
16 tn The verb forms in vv. 23-24 are used in a rhetorical manner, describing future events as if they had already taken place.
17 tn Heb “the arms of his hands.”
18 tn Heb “from there,” but the phrase should be revocalized and read “from [i.e., because of] the name of.”
19 tn Or “Stone.”
20 tn Heb “and he will help you.”
21 tn Heb “Shaddai.” See the note on the title “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1. The preposition אֵת (’et) in the Hebrew text should probably be emended to אֵל (’el, “God”).
22 tn Heb “and he will bless you.”
23 sn Jacob envisions God imparting both agricultural (blessings from the sky above, blessings from the deep that lies below) and human fertility (blessings of the breasts and womb) to Joseph and his family.
24 tn Heb “have prevailed over.”
25 tn One could interpret the phrase הוֹרַי (horay) to mean “my progenitors” (literally, “the ones who conceived me”), but the masculine form argues against this. It is better to emend the text to הַרֲרֵי (harare, “mountains of”) because it forms a better parallel with the next clause. In this case the final yod (י) on the form is a construct plural marker, not a pronominal suffix.
26 tn For further discussion of this passage, see I. Sonne, “Genesis 49:24-26,” JBL 65 (1946): 303-6.