Jacob demonstrated his faith in God's promises by demanding that his sons bury him in the Promised Land. He showed he had learned that God will bless those He chooses to bless by blessing the younger Ephraim over the older Manasseh.
As Jacob's death seemed to be approaching, he called for Joseph and made him swear to bury him in the Promised Land rather than in Egypt (cf. 24:2-3). As the father of such a person as Joseph, Jacob could have had a very fine burial. Notwithstanding his request demonstrates his preference for the promise of God rather than the acclaim of the world (cf. Moses, Heb. 11:24-25).
Placing the hand under the "thigh"was a ritual having connection with making a solemn promise (cf. 24:2-3).
Jacob worshipped God for granting his wish. He evidently prostrated himself on his bed in thanksgiving to Yahweh.
"Jacob, in life too often the cunning schemer who trusted his own wiliness to achieve his ends, now in the face of death shows that his ultimate hope is the promise of God."910
The events recorded in the last three chapters of Genesis deal with the last days of Jacob and Joseph. In these last chapters there are many other references to earlier episodes in the book.
"This constant harking back to earlier episodes and promises is totally in place in a book whose theme is the fulfillment of promises, a book that regularly uses analogy between episodes as a narrative technique. And at the close of a book it is particuarly [sic] appropriate to exploit these cross-linkages to the full. It reinforces the sense of completeness and suggests that the story has reached a natural stopping point."911
This very important section explains how Ephraim and Manasseh came to have equal standing with Joseph's brothers and why Joseph did not become the head of a tribe.
Manasseh would have been between 20 and 26 years old at this time (41:50; 47:28). Ephraim, of course, was younger.
It was as Israel, the prince with God, that Jacob performed this official and significant act (vv. 2-4; cf. Heb. 11:21). His action was in harmony with God's will and purpose for the chosen family, and it involved the patriarchal promises to which he referred (cf. 35:10-12).
"Jacob may be losing his health, but he is not losing his memory. He can recall the incident of many years earlier when God appeared to him at Luz [Bethel] (35:9-15). He repeats the promises of God about fertility, multiplication, that his seed will be an assembly of nations, and finally the promise of land. The only essential element of that theophany he does not repeat is the name change from Jacob to Israel. In this way, Jacob minimizes his role and maximizes God's role in that event."912
By adopting Joseph's first two sons as his own and giving them equal standing with Joseph's brothers, Jacob was bestowing on Joseph the double portion of the birthright (v. 5; cf. v. 22; 1 Chron. 5:1-2). He was also in effect elevating Joseph to the level of himself. Joseph was the first son of Jacob's intended first wife. Jacob's reference to Rachel (v. 7) shows that she, as the mother of Joseph, was in his mind in this act. This act honored her. The other sons of Joseph received their own inheritances.
"Verse 7 has long puzzled biblical interpreters. Why the mention of Rachel at this point in the narrative, and why the mention of her burial site? If we relate the verse to what precedes, then the mention of Rachel here could be prompted by the fact that just as she had borne Jacob two sons' (44:27, Joseph and Benjamin) at a time when he was about to enter (48:7) the land, so also Joseph gave Jacob two sons' (v. 5) just at the time when he was about to enter Egypt."913
This section continues the events begun in verses 1-7.
Jacob's eyes were failing in his old age (v. 10) so he did not recognize Ephraim and Manasseh (cf. 27:1). He may not have seen them for several years previously and may have had difficulty identifying them for this additional reason.
The eyesight of both Isaac and Jacob failed in their old age.
"There is a slight touch of irony here: Jacob had secured Isaac's blessing by guile and deceit, while Joseph is securing the blessing for his sons by honesty and forthrightness."914
Jacob gave God the credit for his seeing Joseph's sons (v. 11). He had come to acknowledge God's providential working and grace in his life as he realized how faithful God had been to him in spite of his unfaithfulness.
Ephraim and Manasseh had been standing close to Jacob, between his knees, so he could see and touch them (v. 12). Now Joseph took them back to where he had been standing in front of his father. He then bowed before Jacob.
"Joseph may be the second most powerful man in Egypt, but he never loses his respect for his father, and he never ceases to be gracious toward him."915
Arranging Manasseh and Ephraim in the normal order for Jacob's blessing, by their age, Joseph then brought them forward again (v. 13).
This is the first of many scriptural instances of the laying on of hands (v. 14). By this symbolic act, a person transferred a spiritual power or gift to another. This rite was part of the ceremony of dedicating a person or group to an office (Num. 27:18, 23; Deut. 34:9; Matt. 19:13; Acts 6:6; 8:17; etc.), offering sacrifices, and the healings Jesus Christ and the apostles performed. In this case Jacob symbolically transferred a blessing from himself to Joseph's sons. Once uttered, blessings were irreversible (cf. Num. 23:20; Rom. 11:29).
Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh also carried prophetic significance and force (vv. 19-20). Under the inspiration of God, Jacob deliberately gave Ephraim the privileged first-born blessing and predicted his preeminence.916We can see this blessing in the process of fulfillment during the judges period when Ephraim had grown very large and influential. This tribe took the lead among the ten northern tribes and flourished to the extent that the Jews used the name Ephraim equally with the name Israel. The Ephraimites occasionally demonstrated an attitude of superiority among the tribes that we can trace back to this blessing (e.g., Judg. 12:1; et al.).
The reference to Israel in verse 20 applies to the nation in the future from Jacob's viewpoint.
Jacob (Israel, the prince with God because of his faith) firmly believed God's promise to bring his descendants back into the Promised Land (cf. 46:4). Jacob's prophetic promise to Joseph (v. 22) is a play on words. The word for "portion"means ridge or shoulder (of land) and is the same as "Shechem."Shechem lay in Manasseh's territory. The Israelites later buried Joseph at Shechem (Josh. 24:32). Jacob regarded the land that he had purchased there (33:18-20) as a pledge of his descendants' future possession of the whole land. In Jesus' day people spoke of Shechem (near Sychar) as what Jacob had given to Joseph (John 4:5).
Jacob spoke as though he had taken Shechem from the Amorites by force (v. 22). He had, of course, purchased it peacefully from Hamor the Hivite (33:18-34:2). Scholars have explained this apparent error as follows. Moses used the perfect tense in Hebrew, translated past tense in English ("took"), prophetically. In this usage, which is common in the Old Testament, the writer spoke of the future as past. The idea was that since God predicted them by divine inspiration events yet future are so certain of fulfillment that one could speak of them as already past. Here the thought is that Israel (Jacob) would take Canaan from the Amorites, the most powerful of the Canaanite tribes, not personally, but in his posterity (cf. 15:16).917
Other scholars have suggested another explanation.
"It is not impossible that the property which Jacob owned at Shechem was taken away by the Amorites after he left the region (cf. 35:4, 5) and that he eventually returned and repossessed it by force of arms?"918
Apparently Jacob gave Joseph Shechem, which he regarded as a down-payment of all that God would give his descendants as they battled the Canaanites in the future.
"For Joseph it was an honour that his father entrusted him with his funeral in Palestine (47.30f.). In 48.21f., the implication in family law is finally drawn: Joseph, instead of Reuben, receives the double heritage as a sign of his primogeniture (48.22a). Just as the son is commanded to bury the father in Palestine, so it is in Palestine that the priority of Joseph within the family takes effect. These two scenes thus enclose a detailed blessing for Joseph and his sons, so filling out the promise of his superiority in Palestine (48.22a)."919
Believers whom God has shepherded for a lifetime can see God's purposes and plans for the future more clearly even though the maturing process has been difficult for them.920
