Genesis 48:1-8

Manasseh and Ephraim

48:1 After these things Joseph was told, ¹  “Your father is weakening.” So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him. 48:2 When Jacob was told, ²  “Your son Joseph has just ³  come to you,” Israel regained strength and sat up on his bed. 48:3 Jacob said to Joseph, “The sovereign God ⁴  appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 48:4 He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful ⁵  and will multiply you. ⁶  I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants ⁷  as an everlasting possession.’ ⁸ 

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. ⁹  Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are. 48:6 Any children that you father ¹⁰  after them will be yours; they will be listed ¹¹  under the names of their brothers in their inheritance. ¹²  48:7 But as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died – to my sorrow ¹³  – in the land of Canaan. It happened along the way, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem). ¹⁴ 

48:8 When Israel saw Joseph’s sons, he asked, “Who are these?”

[48:1]  ¹ tn Heb “and one said.” With no expressed subject in the Hebrew text, the verb can be translated with the passive voice.

[48:2]  ² tn Heb “and one told and said.” The verbs have no expressed subject and can be translated with the passive voice.

[48:2]  ³ tn Heb “Look, your son Joseph.”

[48:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.

[48:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Look, I am making you fruitful.” The participle following הִנֵּה (hinneh) has the nuance of a certain and often imminent future.

[48:4]  ⁶ tn The perfect verbal form with vav consecutive carries on the certain future idea.

[48:4]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text adds “after you,” which has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[48:4]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew word אֲחֻזָּה (’akhuzzah), translated “possession,” describes a permanent holding in the land. It is the noun form of the same verb (אָחַז, ’akhaz) that was used for the land given to them in Goshen (Gen 47:27).

[48:5]  ⁹ 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.

[48:6]  ¹⁰ tn Or “you fathered.”

[48:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “called” or “named.”

[48:6]  ¹² sn Listed under the names of their brothers in their inheritance. This means that any subsequent children of Joseph will be incorporated into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

[48:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “upon me, against me,” which might mean something like “to my sorrow.”

[48:7]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.