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
