21 And Israel saith unto Joseph, `Lo, I am dying, and God hath been with you, and hath brought you back unto the land of your fathers;
Trust not in princes -- in a son of man, For he hath no deliverance. His spirit goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, In that day have his thoughts perished.
and those indeed are many who have become priests, because by death they are hindered from remaining; and he, because of his remaining -- to the age, hath the priesthood not transient, whence also he is able to save to the very end, those coming through him unto God -- ever living to make intercession for them.
Your fathers -- where `are' they? And the prophets -- to the age do they live? Only, My words, and My statutes, That I commanded My servants the prophets, Have they not overtaken your fathers, And they turn back and say: As Jehovah of Hosts designed to do to us, According to our ways, and according to our doings, So He hath done to us?'
`I am going in the way of all the earth, and thou hast been strong, and become a man, and kept the charge of Jehovah thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commands, and His judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that thou dost wisely all that thou dost, and whithersoever thou turnest, so that Jehovah doth establish His word which He spake unto me, saying, If thy sons observe their way to walk before Me in truth, with all their heart, and with all their soul; saying, There is not cut off a man of thine from the throne of Israel.
And Joshua gathereth all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and calleth for the elders of Israel, and for its heads, and for its judges, and for its authorities, and they station themselves before God. And Joshua saith unto all the people, `Thus said Jehovah, God of Israel, Beyond the River have your fathers dwelt of old -- Terah father of Abraham and father of Nachor -- and they serve other gods; and I take your father Abraham from beyond the River, and cause him to go through all the land of Canaan, and multiply his seed, and give to him Isaac. And I give to Isaac, Jacob and Esau; and I give to Esau mount Seir, to possess it; and Jacob and his sons have gone down to Egypt. And I send Moses and Aaron, and plague Egypt, as I have done in its midst, and afterwards I have brought you out. And I bring out your fathers from Egypt, and ye go into the sea, and the Egyptians pursue after your fathers, with chariot and with horsemen, to the Red Sea; and they cry unto Jehovah, and He setteth thick darkness between you and the Egyptians, and bringeth on them the sea, and covereth them, and your eyes see that which I have done in Egypt; and ye dwell in a wilderness many days. `And I bring you in unto the land of the Amorite who is dwelling beyond the Jordan, and they fight with you, and I give them into your hand, and ye possess their land, and I destroy them out of your presence. `And Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab, riseth and fighteth against Israel, and sendeth and calleth for Balaam son of Beor, to revile you, and I have not been willing to hearken to Balaam, and he doth greatly bless you, and I deliver you out of his hand. `And ye pass over the Jordan, and come in unto Jericho, and fight against you do the possessors of Jericho -- the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite -- and I give them into your hand. And I send before you the hornet, and it casteth them out from your presence -- two kings of the Amorite -- not by thy sword, nor by thy bow. `And I give to you a land for which thou hast not laboured, and cities which ye have not built, and ye dwell in them; of vineyards and olive-yards which ye have not planted ye are eating. `And now, fear ye Jehovah, and serve Him, in perfection and in truth, and turn aside the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve ye Jehovah; and if wrong in your eyes to serve Jehovah -- choose for you to-day whom ye do serve; -- whether the gods whom your fathers served, which `are' beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorite in whose land ye are dwelling; and I and my house -- we serve Jehovah.' And the people answer and say, `Far be it from us to forsake Jehovah, to serve other gods; for Jehovah our God `is' He who is bringing us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of servants, and who hath done before our eyes these great signs, and doth keep us in all the way in which we have gone, and among all the peoples through whose midst we passed; and Jehovah casteth out the whole of the peoples, even the Amorite inhabiting the land, from our presence; we also do serve Jehovah, for He `is' our God.' And Joshua saith unto the people, `Ye are not able to serve Jehovah, for a God most holy He `is'; a zealous God He `is'; He doth not bear with your transgression and with your sins. When ye forsake Jehovah, and have served gods of a stranger, then He hath turned back and done evil to you, and consumed you, after that He hath done good to you.' And the people saith unto Joshua, `No, but Jehovah we do serve.' And Joshua saith unto the people, `Witnesses ye are against yourselves, that ye have chosen for you Jehovah to serve Him (and they say, `Witnesses!') and, now, turn aside the gods of the stranger which `are' in your midst, and incline your heart unto Jehovah, God of Israel.' And the people say unto Joshua, `Jehovah our God we serve, and to His voice we hearken.' And Joshua maketh a covenant with the people on that day, and layeth on it a statute and an ordinance, in Shechem. And Joshua writeth these words in the Book of the Law of God, and taketh a great stone, and raiseth it up there under the oak which `is' in the sanctuary of Jehovah. And Joshua saith unto all the people, `Lo, this stone is against us for a witness, for it hath heard all the sayings of Jehovah which He hath spoken with us, and it hath been against you for a witness, lest ye lie against your God.' And Joshua sendeth the people away, each to his inheritance. And it cometh to pass, after these things, that Joshua son of Nun, servant of Jehovah, dieth, a son of a hundred and ten years, and they bury him in the border of his inheritance, in Timnath-Serah, which `is' in the hill-country of Ephraim, on the north of the hill of Gaash. And Israel serveth Jehovah all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who prolonged days after Joshua, and who knew all the work of Jehovah which He did to Israel. And the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem, in the portion of the field which Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor father of Shechem, with a hundred kesitah; and they are to the sons of Joseph for an inheritance. And Eleazar son of Aaron died, and they bury him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given to him in the hill-country of Ephraim.
These `are' the words which Moses hath spoken unto all Israel, beyond the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain over-against Suph, between Paran and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-Zahab; eleven days' from Horeb, the way of mount Seir, unto Kadesh-Barnea. And it cometh to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month hath Moses spoken unto the sons of Israel according to all that Jehovah hath commanded him concerning them; after his smiting Sihon king of the Amorite who is dwelling in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan who is dwelling in Ashtaroth in Edrei, beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, hath Moses begun to explain this law, saying: `Jehovah our God hath spoken unto us in Horeb, saying, Enough to you -- of dwelling in this mount; turn ye and journey for you, and enter the mount of the Amorite, and unto all its neighbouring places, in the plain, in the hill-country, and in the low country, and in the south, and in the haven of the sea, the land of the Canaanite, and of Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Phrat; see, I have set before you the land; go in and possess the land which Jehovah hath sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them, and to their seed after them. `And I speak unto you at that time, saying, I am not able by myself to bear you; Jehovah your God hath multiplied you, and lo, ye `are' to-day as the stars of the heavens for multitude; Jehovah, God of your fathers, is adding to you, as ye `are', a thousand times, and doth bless you as He hath spoken to you. `How do I bear by myself your pressure, and your burden, and your strife? Give for yourselves men, wise and intelligent, and known to your tribes, and I set them for your heads; and ye answer me and say, Good `is' the thing which thou hast spoken -- to do. `And I take the heads of your tribes, men, wise and known, and I appoint them heads over you, princes of thousands, and princes of hundreds, and princes of fifties, and princes of tens, and authorities, for your tribes. And I command your judges at that time, saying, Hearkening between your brethren -- then ye have judged righteousness between a man, and his brother, and his sojourner; ye do not discern faces in judgment; as the little so the great ye do hear; ye are not afraid of the face of any, for the judgment is God's, and the thing which is too hard for you, ye bring near unto me, and I have heard it; and I command you, at that time, all the things which ye do. `And we journey from Horeb, and go `through' all that great and fearful wilderness which ye have seen -- the way of the hill-country of the Amorite, as Jehovah our God hath commanded us, and we come in unto Kadesh-Barnea. `And I say unto you, Ye have come in unto the hill-country of the Amorite, which Jehovah our God is giving to us; see, Jehovah thy God hath set before thee the land; go up, possess, as Jehovah, God of thy fathers, hath spoken to thee; fear not, nor be affrighted. `And ye come near unto me, all of you, and say, Let us send men before us, and they search for us the land, and they bring us back word `concerning' the way in which we go up into it, and the cities unto which we come in; and the thing is good in mine eyes, and I take of you twelve men, one man for a tribe. `And they turn and go up to the hill-country, and come in unto the valley of Eshcol, and spy it, and they take with their hand of the fruit of the land, and bring down unto us, and bring us back word, and say, Good is the land which Jehovah our God is giving to us. `And ye have not been willing to go up, and ye provoke the mouth of Jehovah your God, and murmur in your tents, and say, In Jehovah's hating us He hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite -- to destroy us; whither are we going up? our brethren have melted our heart, saying, A people greater and taller than we, cities great and fenced to heaven, and also sons of Anakim -- we have seen there. `And I say unto you, Be not terrified, nor be afraid of them; Jehovah your God, who is going before you -- He doth fight for you, according to all that He hath done with you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where thou hast seen that Jehovah thy God hath borne thee as a man beareth his son, in all the way which ye have gone, till your coming in unto this place. `And in this thing ye are not stedfast in Jehovah your God, who is going before you in the way to search out to you a place for your encamping, in fire by night, to shew you in the way in which ye go, and in a cloud by day. `And Jehovah heareth the voice of your words, and is wroth, and sweareth, saying, Not one of these men of this evil generation doth see the good land which I have sworn to give to your fathers, save Caleb son of Jephunneh -- he doth see it, and to him I give the land on which he hath trodden, and to his sons, because that he hath been fully after Jehovah. `Also with me hath Jehovah been angry for your sake, saying, Also, thou dost not go in thither; Joshua son of Nun, who is standing before thee, he goeth in thither; him strengthen thou; for he doth cause Israel to inherit. `And your infants, of whom ye have said, For a prey they are, and your sons who have not known to-day good and evil, they go in thither, and to them I give it, and they possess it; and ye, turn for yourselves, and journey toward the wilderness, the way of the Red Sea. `And ye answer and say unto me, We have sinned against Jehovah; we -- we go up, and we have fought, according to all that which Jehovah our God hath commanded us; and ye gird on each his weapons of war, and ye are ready to go up into the hill-country; and Jehovah saith unto me, Say to them, Ye do not go up, nor fight, for I am not in your midst, and ye are not smitten before your enemies. `And I speak unto you, and ye have not hearkened, and provoke the mouth of Jehovah, and act proudly, and go up into the hill-country; and the Amorite who is dwelling in that hill-country cometh out to meet you, and they pursue you as the bees do, and smite you in Seir -- unto Hormah. `And ye turn back and weep before Jehovah, and Jehovah hath not hearkened to your voice, nor hath he given ear unto you; and ye dwell in Kadesh many days, according to the days which ye had dwelt.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Genesis 48
Commentary on Genesis 48 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Adoption of Joseph's Sons. - Genesis 48:1, Genesis 48:2. After these events, i.e., not long after Jacob's arrangements for his burial, it was told to Joseph ( ויּאמר “one said,” cf. Genesis 48:2) that his father was taken ill; whereupon Joseph went to him with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were then 18 or 20 years old. On his arrival being announced to Jacob, Israel made himself strong (collected his strength), and sat up on his bed. The change of names is as significant here as in Genesis 45:27-28. Jacob, enfeebled with age, gathered up his strength for a work, which he was about to perform as Israel, the bearer of the grace of the promise.
Referring to the promise which the Almighty God had given him at Bethel (Genesis 35:10. cf. Genesis 38:13.), Israel said to Joseph (Genesis 48:5): “ And now thy two sons, which were born to thee in the land of Egypt, until (before) I came to thee into Egypt...let them be mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, like Reuben and Simeon (my first and second born), let them be mine .” The promise which Jacob had received empowered the patriarch to adopt the sons of Joseph in the place of children. Since the Almighty God had promised him the increase of his seed into a multitude of peoples, and Canaan as an eternal possession to that seed, he could so incorporate into the number of his descendants the two sons of Joseph who were born in Egypt before his arrival, and therefore outside the range of his house, that they should receive an equal share in the promised inheritance with his own eldest sons. But this privilege was to be restricted to the two first-born sons of Joseph. “ Thy descendants ,” he proceeds in Genesis 48:6, “ which thou hast begotten since them, shall be thine; by the name of their brethren shall they be called in their inheritance; ” i.e., they shall not form tribes of their own with a separate inheritance, but shall be reckoned as belonging to Ephraim and Manasseh, and receive their possessions among these tribes, and in their inheritance. These other sons of Joseph are not mentioned anywhere; but their descendants are at any rate included in the families of Ephraim and Manasseh mentioned in Numbers 26:28-37; 1 Chron 7:14-29. By this adoption of his two eldest sons, Joseph was placed in the position of the first-born, so far as the inheritance was concerned (1 Chronicles 5:2). Joseph's mother, who had died so early, was also honoured thereby. And this explains the allusion made by Jacob in Genesis 48:7 to his beloved Rachel, the wife of his affections, and to her death-how she died by his side ( עלי ), on his return from Padan (for Padan-Aram , the only place in which it is so called, cf. Genesis 25:20), without living to see her first-born exalted to the position of a saviour to the whole house of Israel.
The Blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh. - Genesis 48:8. Jacob now for the first time caught sight of Joseph's sons, who had come with him, and inquired who they were; for “ the eyes of Israel were heavy (dim) with age, so that he could not see well ” (Genesis 48:10). The feeble old man, too, may not have seen the youths for some years, so that he did not recognise them again. On Joseph's answering, “ My sons whom God hath given he mere, ” he replied, “ Bring them to me then ( קחם־נא ), that I may bless them; ” and he kissed and embraced them, when Joseph had brought them near, expressing his joy, that whereas he never expected to see Joseph's face again, God had permitted him to see his seed. ראה for ראות , like עשׂו (Genesis 31:28). עלּל : to decide; here, to judge, to think.
Joseph then, in order to prepare his sons for the reception of the blessing, brought them from between the knees of Israel, who was sitting with the youths between his knees and embracing them, and having prostrated himself with his face to the earth, he came up to his father again, with Ephraim the younger on his right hand, and Manasseh the elder on the left, so that Ephraim stood at Jacob's right hand, and Manasseh at his left.
The patriarch then stretched out his right hand and laid it upon Ephraim's head, and placed his left upon the head of Manasseh (crossing his arms therefore), to bless Joseph in his sons. “ Guiding his hands wittingly; ” i.e., he placed his hands in this manner intentionally. Laying on the hand, which is mentioned here for the first time in the Scriptures, was a symbolical sign, by which the person acting transferred to another a spiritual good, a supersensual power or gift; it occurs elsewhere in connection with dedication to an office (Numbers 27:18, Numbers 27:23; Deuteronomy 34:9; Matthew 19:13; Acts 6:6; Acts 8:17, etc.), with the sacrifices, and with the cures performed by Christ and the apostles. By the imposition of hands, Jacob transferred to Joseph in his sons the blessing which he implored for them from his own and his father's God: “ The God ( Ha-Elohim ) before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God ( Ha-Elohim ) who hath fed me (led and provided for me with a shepherd's faithfulness, Psalms 23:1; Psalms 28:9) from my existence up to this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads .” This triple reference to God, in which the Angel who is placed on an equality with Ha-Elohim cannot possibly be a created angel, but must be the “Angel of God,” i.e., God manifested in the form of the Angel of Jehovah, or the “Angel of His face” (Isaiah 43:9), contains a foreshadowing of the Trinity, though only God and the Angel are distinguished, not three persons of the divine nature. The God before whom Abraham and Isaac walked, had proved Himself to Jacob to be “the God which fed” and “the Angel which redeemed,” i.e., according to the more fully developed revelation of the New Testament, ὁ Θεός and ὁ λόγος , Shepherd and Redeemer. By the singular יברך (bless, benedicat ) the triple mention of God is resolved into the unity of the divine nature. Non dicit ( Jakob ) benedicant, pluraliter, nec repetit sed conjungit in uno opere benedicendi tres personas, Deum Patrem, Deum pastorem et Angelum. Sunt igitur hi tres unus Deus et unus benedictor. Idem opus facit Angelus quod pastor et Deus Patrum ( Luther ). “Let my name be named on them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,” i.e., not, “they shall bear my name and my fathers',” “ dicantur filii mei et patrum meorum, licet ex te nati sint ” ( Rosenm .), which would only be another way of acknowledging his adoption of them, “ nota adoptionis ” ( Calvin ); for as the simple mention of adoption is unsuitable to such a blessing, so the words appended, “ and according to the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, ” are still less suitable as a periphrasis for adoption. The thought is rather: the true nature of the patriarchs shall be discerned and acknowledged in Ephraim and Manasseh; in them shall those blessings of grace and salvation be renewed, which Jacob and his fathers Isaac and Abraham received from God. The name expressed the nature, and “being called” is equivalent to “being, and being recognised by what one is.” The salvation promised to the patriarchs related primarily to the multiplication into a great nation, and the possession of Canaan. Hence Jacob proceeds: “ and let them increase into a multitude in the midst of the land .” דּגה : ἁπ λεγ , “to increase,” from which the name דּג , a fish, is derived, on account of the remarkable rapidity with which they multiply.
When Joseph observed his father placing his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, the younger son, he laid hold of it to put it upon Manasseh's head, telling his father at the same time that he was the first-born; but Jacob replied, “ I know, my son, I know: he also (Manasseh) will become a nation, and will become great, yet ( ואוּלם as in Genesis 28:19) his younger brother will become greater than he, and his seed will become the fulness of nations .” This blessing began to be fulfilled from the time of the Judges, when the tribe of Ephraim so increased in extent and power, that it took the lead of the northern tribes and became the head of the ten tribes, and its name acquired equal importance with the name Israel, whereas under Moses, Manasseh had numbered 20,000 more than Ephraim (Numbers 26:34 and Numbers 26:37). As a result of the promises received from God, the blessing was not merely a pious wish, but the actual bestowal of a blessing of prophetic significance and force. - In Genesis 48:20 the writer sums up the entire act of blessing in the words of the patriarch: “ In thee (i.e., Joseph) will Israel (as a nation) bless, saying: God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh ” (i.e., Joseph shall be so blessed in his two sons, that their blessing will become a standing form of benediction in Israel); “ and thus he placed Ephraim before Manasseh, ” viz., in the position of his hands and the terms of the blessing. Lastly, (Genesis 48:21) Israel expressed to Joseph his firm faith in the promise, that God would bring back his descendants after his death into the land of their fathers (Canaan), and assigned to him a double portion in the promised land, the conquest of which passed before his prophetic glance as already accomplished, in order to insure for the future the inheritance of the adopted sons of Joseph. “ I give thee one ridge of land above thy brethren ” (i.e., above what thy brethren receive, each as a single tribe), “which I take from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and bow” (i.e., by force of arms). As the perfect is used prophetically, transposing the future to the present as being already accomplished, so the words לקחתּי אשׁר must also be understood prophetically, as denoting that Jacob would wrest the land from the Amorites, not in his own person, but in that of his posterity.
(Note: There is no force in Kurtz's objection, that this gift did not apply to Joseph as the father of Ephraim and Manasseh, but to Joseph personally; for it rests upon the erroneous assumption, that Jacob separated Joseph from his sons by their adoption. But there is not a word to that effect in Genesis 48:6, and the very opposite in Genesis 48:15, viz., that Jacob blessed Joseph in Ephraim and Manasseh. Heim's conjecture, which Kurtz approves, that by the land given to Joseph we are to understand the high land of Gilead, which Jacob had conquered from the Amorites, needs no refutation, for it is purely imaginary.)
The words cannot refer to the purchase of the piece of ground at Shechem (Genesis 33:19), for a purchase could not possibly be called a conquest by sword and bow; and still less to the crime committed by the sons of Jacob against the inhabitants of Shechem, when they plundered the town (Genesis 34:25.), for Jacob could not possibly have attributed to himself a deed for which he had pronounced a curse upon Simeon and Levi (Genesis 49:6-7), not to mention the fact, that the plundering of Shechem was not followed in this instance by the possession of the city, but by the removal of Jacob from the neighbourhood. “Moreover, any conquest of territory would have been entirely at variance with the character of the patriarchal history, which consisted in the renunciation of all reliance upon human power, and a believing, devoted trust in the God of the promises” ( Delitzsch ). The land, which the patriarchs desired to obtain in Canaan, they procured not by force of arms, but by legal purchase (cf. Gen 24 and Genesis 33:19). It was to be very different in the future, when the iniquity of the Amorites was full (Genesis 15:16). But Jacob called the inheritance, which Joseph was to have in excess of his brethren, שׁכם (lit., shoulder, or more properly nape, neck; here figuratively a ridge, or tract of land), as a play upon the word Shechem , because he regarded the piece of land purchased at Shechem as a pledge of the future possession of the whole land. In the piece purchased there, the bones of Joseph were buried, after the conquest of Canaan (Joshua 24:32); and this was understood in future times, as though Jacob had presented the piece of ground to Joseph (vid., John 4:5).