Hearing his father is ill Joseph drops by with his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, Genesis 48:1-2. On arrival, Jacob asks Joseph to bring the boys close to him so he can pronounce a blessing on them (8-10).
Joseph already knows that his Dad has made Ephraim and Manasseh the next in line to inherit the blessings God promised to Abraham (3-5), so he assumes that Manasseh being the oldest gets the special firstborn’s blessing. Jacob’s eyesight, however, has reached the point he can “hardly see” (10), so Joseph places Ephraim, the youngest of the two boys, close to Jacob’s left hand, and Manasseh the oldest to Jacob’s right hand (13) – the right hand signifying a special place of honour and pre-eminence, as in Jesus being seated at the “right hand of God” (Ephesians 1:19-21).
But with no explanation given, Jacob switches hands so that his right hand is now on Ephraim’s head, not Manasseh’s (14).
This does not go down well with Joseph. He’s thoroughly “displeased” (17), which in Hebrew indicates he felt his Dad was absolutely wrong doing this, and even bordering on evil, so he tries to remove Jacob’s right hand and put it back on Manasseh’s head, at the same time saying, “No, my father, this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head” (17-18). And knowing how much Joseph revered his Dad (12), this must have really bothered him, enough for him to make such a challenge.
But for years Joseph had been steeped in the importance of the firstborn son’s rights in Egyptian tradition (seen later in how devastated Egypt was by the killing of all their firstborn in Exodus 12:29-30). On the other hand, Jacob had just blessed Joseph saying it was God who was “blessing these boys” (15-16), so Joseph didn’t need to doubt what his Dad was doing. And clearly his Dad did know what he was doing, because, as he also says in verse 15, “God has been my Shepherd all my life to this day,” which, therefore, would include that same day too.
It was an awkward moment, but with years of experiencing being “delivered from all harm” (16), Jacob calmly replies in verse 19, “I know, my son, I know,” acknowledging his son’s concern, but at the same time refusing to budge his hands and continuing with what he’d asked Joseph to bring his two boys close to him for, which turned out to be “Two amazing blessings”….(next blog)
