Genesis 48:5

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 19, 2010 under Ask the Pastor |

A visitor to our website writes:

Could you please tell me why in Genesis 48 verse 5 why Israel tells Joseph that Ephraim and Manasseh are his?

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Dear friend,

The old patriarch Jacob had been given twelve sons; and now in the passage you referenced, as he lay sick and dying in Egypt, he speaks some of his closing words of blessing to his beloved son Joseph. He strengthens himself on his bed and, among other things, says; “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.’ And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine” (Genesis 48:3-5, emph. added).

It’s important to remember that Jacob had thought that he had lost Joseph. Back in Genesis 37, Joseph’s other brothers had sold him into slavery in Egypt (which, of course, was in the hand of God to preserve the twelve tribes during a time of famine; Genesis 50:20). Now that he sees that he didn’t lose Joseph after all, he formally adopts Joseph’s two sons as his own and gives them a blessing among his other sons.

The reason that Jacob was motivated to do this may have been because of his deep love for his deceed wife Rachel. Jacob had only two sons through her—Joseph and Benjamin (35:24). He particularly loved Joseph because he was the son of his old age (37:3). And so, as a memorial to his wife Rachel (who had died giving birth to Benjamin), and probably out of gratitude that Joseph had been returned to him, he claimed Joseph’s two sons as his own.

Whatever Jacob’s motivation may have been in this, however, God’s providential hand was clearly seen. There was no tribe in Israel called by the name of “Joseph”; and the tribe of Levi was not given an inheritance of land in Israel. So, the two half-tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, together with the others, constituted a full twelve tribes with the possession of land (see Numbers 1:5-16).

Jacob also demonstrated a faith that God would bring him and his family back to the land of promise after their time in Egypt was over. Blessing them as he had blessed his other sons suggested his confidence that they would have an inheritance of land given to them on their return—which, of course, they did.

Blessings in Jesus’ love.
Pastor Greg

(All Scripture quotes are taken from the New King James Version.)