Genesis 48: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Joseph hears that his father Jacob is ill and comes to him with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Jacob recalls God's appearance to him at Luz and the promise of land and descendants, says that Ephraim and Manasseh will count as his own sons alongside Reuben and Simeon, and speaks of Rachel's death and burial on the way to Ephrath. He blesses the two boys with his right hand on the younger, Ephraim, and when Joseph objects he refuses to change it and says the younger brother will be greater. He tells Joseph that he is dying, that God will bring them back to the land of their fathers, and that he gives Joseph one portion more than his brothers, land Jacob took from the Amorite with his sword and his bow.

Claim by Claim

1. 48:1
   • This happened after the preceding events.
   • Someone told Joseph that his father was sick.
   • Joseph took his two sons with him.
   • Joseph's two sons were Manasseh and Ephraim.
2. 48:2
   • Someone told Jacob that his son Joseph had come to him.
   • Israel gathered his strength.
   • Israel sat up on the bed.
3. 48:3
   • Jacob spoke to Joseph.
   • Jacob said that God Almighty appeared to him at Luz in the land of Canaan.
   • Jacob said that God Almighty blessed him there.
4. 48:4
   • Jacob said that God told him he would make him fruitful.
   • Jacob said that God told him he would multiply him.
   • Jacob said that God told him he would make him into an assembly of peoples.
   • Jacob said that God told him he would give this land to his offspring after him.
   • Jacob said that God gave the land as an everlasting possession.
5. 48:5
   • Jacob said that Joseph's two sons were born to Joseph in the land of Egypt.
   • Jacob said they were born before he himself came to Joseph in Egypt.
   • Jacob said those two sons were his own.
   • Jacob named the two sons Ephraim and Manasseh.
   • Jacob said Ephraim and Manasseh would be his just as Reuben and Simeon were.
6. 48:6
   • Jacob said the children Joseph fathered after those two would be Joseph's own.
   • Jacob said those later children would be named after their brothers in their inheritance.
7. 48:7
   • Jacob said that when he came from Paddan, Rachel died on him in the land of Canaan.
   • Jacob said Rachel died on the road.
   • Jacob said there was still some distance of land left to reach Ephrath when she died.
   • Jacob said he buried her there on the road to Ephrath.
   • Ephrath is Bethlehem.
8. 48:8
   • Israel saw Joseph's sons.
   • Israel asked who they were.
9. 48:9
   • Joseph told his father that they were his sons.
   • Joseph said God had given them to him in this place.
   • Israel asked Joseph to bring them to him.
   • Israel said he would bless them.
10. 48:10
    • Israel's eyes were heavy from old age.
    • Israel was unable to see.
    • Joseph brought the boys near to Israel.
    • Israel kissed them.
    • Israel embraced them.
11. 48:11
    • Israel said to Joseph that he had not expected to see Joseph's face.
    • Israel said God had shown him Joseph's offspring as well.
12. 48:12
    • Joseph took the two boys out from beside the knees.
    • The text does not specify whether the knees are Joseph's or Jacob's.
    • Joseph bowed with his face to the ground.
13. 48:13
    • Joseph took both boys.
    • Joseph held Ephraim in his right hand, toward Israel's left hand.
    • Joseph held Manasseh in his left hand, toward Israel's right hand.
    • Joseph brought them near to Israel.
14. 48:14
    • Israel stretched out his right hand.
    • Israel placed his right hand on Ephraim's head.
    • Ephraim was the younger.
    • Israel placed his left hand on Manasseh's head.
    • Israel crossed his hands deliberately.
    • Manasseh was the firstborn.
15. 48:15
    • Israel blessed Joseph.
    • Israel spoke of the God before whom his fathers Abraham and Isaac walked.
    • Israel spoke of the God who had shepherded him all his life until that day.
16. 48:16
    • Israel spoke of the angel who redeemed him from all evil.
    • Israel asked that this one bless the boys.
    • Israel asked that his own name be named on them.
    • Israel asked that the name of his fathers Abraham and Isaac be named on them.
    • Israel asked that they multiply abundantly in the midst of the earth.
17. 48:17
    • Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim's head.
    • This was displeasing in Joseph's eyes.
    • Joseph took hold of his father's hand.
    • Joseph intended to move the hand from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.
18. 48:18
    • Joseph told his father that this was not right.
    • Joseph said that this one was the firstborn.
    • Joseph told his father to put his right hand on that one's head.
19. 48:19
    • Joseph's father refused.
    • Jacob said he knew.
    • Jacob said the older son would also become a people.
    • Jacob said the older son would also be great.
    • Jacob said the younger brother would be greater than he.
    • Jacob said the younger brother's offspring would become a fullness of nations.
20. 48:20
    • Israel blessed them that day.
    • Israel said that by them Israel would pronounce blessing.
    • The blessing formula was that God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh.
    • Israel set Ephraim before Manasseh.
21. 48:21
    • Israel said to Joseph that he was dying.
    • Israel said God would be with them.
    • Israel said God would bring them back to the land of their fathers.
22. 48:22
    • Israel said he had given Joseph one portion more than his brothers.
    • It is ambiguous whether the thing given is a shoulder of land, a single portion, or the place named Shechem.
    • Israel said he took it from the hand of the Amorite.
    • Israel said he took it with his sword and with his bow.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

48:1

By this point Jacob's whole family has moved from Canaan to Egypt to escape a famine, and Joseph, the son Jacob once believed was dead, is the second most powerful official in Egypt. Manasseh and Ephraim were born to Joseph in Egypt, and their mother was Egyptian.

48:2

Jacob and Israel are two names for the same man; God renamed him Israel earlier in Genesis, and from here on the narrator moves between the two names freely, sometimes within a single sentence.

48:3

"God Almighty" translates the Hebrew title El Shaddai, an ancient name whose exact sense is uncertain: it may mean "God of the mountain" or "God the sufficient one." Luz was the older name of the town Jacob renamed Bethel, where he had earlier seen a stairway reaching to heaven.

48:4

This is the promise God had already made to Jacob's grandfather Abraham and to his father Isaac: countless descendants, and the land of Canaan as theirs permanently. Jacob is repeating it now because he is dying in Egypt, far from that land.

48:5

This is a formal act of adoption. Jacob is saying that Joseph's two sons will count as his own sons rather than his grandsons, and so will each receive a share of the family land in their own right, alongside Jacob's other sons. Reuben and Simeon are named because they were Jacob's two eldest, so the comparison places Ephraim and Manasseh at the top of the list. The practical effect is that Joseph's line receives two shares instead of one.

48:6

Any later sons of Joseph would not become tribes of their own; they would be registered within the territory allotted to Ephraim or Manasseh and inherit as part of those groups.

48:7

Padan (Paddan-aram) was the region in upper Mesopotamia where Jacob had lived for twenty years with his uncle Laban. Rachel was Jacob's favorite wife and Joseph's mother; she died giving birth to Benjamin on the journey home, and Jacob is explaining to Joseph why she lies buried by the roadside rather than in the family tomb.

48:9

A blessing in this world is a formal spoken act, not simply a kind wish. The words of a dying father were treated as binding, something like a will: they settled who counted as an heir, what each son's standing was, and how the family's future was divided.

48:12

Placing children on or between the knees of an older man was a recognized gesture in the ancient Near East by which he acknowledged them as his own. Joseph now lifts the boys back off Jacob's knees so that the formal blessing can be given.

48:13

Joseph positions the boys so that Manasseh, the elder, will receive Jacob's right hand. The right hand was understood to convey the stronger or primary blessing, and the elder son was expected to receive it.

48:14

A firstborn son normally held a recognized legal advantage: a double share of the inheritance and the leading position among his brothers. Jacob deliberately crossing his hands overturns that expectation. The Hebrew verb translated "crossed" or "guiding wittingly" is rare and its exact sense is debated, but it clearly indicates a knowing, intentional act rather than a mistake by a blind old man.

48:15

"Walked before" is an idiom for living one's whole life in someone's presence and service. "Fed me" translates a Hebrew word meaning "shepherded me", the image is of God as a herdsman leading and providing for an animal in his care.

48:16

"Redeemed" translates a Hebrew legal term: a redeemer was the relative obliged to buy a family member out of debt or slavery, buy back sold land, or avenge a killing. Applying it here casts God as the kinsman who bought Jacob out of every trouble. "Let my name be named on them" means let them be counted as belonging to his family and carry its identity.

48:19

"A great many nations" translates a Hebrew phrase literally meaning "the fullness of the nations", a large population filling out into many peoples.

48:20

"Israel" here means the nation descended from Jacob, not Jacob himself. The point is that Ephraim's and Manasseh's names will become the standard wording of a blessing, the benchmark people invoke when wishing prosperity on someone.

48:21

The land of their fathers is Canaan, where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had lived before the family moved to Egypt.

48:22

The Hebrew is ambiguous. The word for "portion" is *shekem*, which also means "shoulder" or "ridge of land" and is the name of the town Shechem, so the line can mean either "one share more than your brothers" or "the ridge of land" or "Shechem." "The Amorite" was a broad term for the peoples living in Canaan before Israel; here it stands for the earlier inhabitants generally. No earlier account of Jacob capturing land by force is recorded in Genesis, and the reference is unexplained.