THE STORY OF JOSEPH. EPISODE 13. GENESIS CHAPTER 48: THE BLESSING

 

CHAPTER 48: THE BLESSING

In this chapter:

Ø  The time for Jacob’s death draws near. Jacob is ill and joseph gets the word

Ø  Joseph takes with him his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to go see his ailing father Jacob

Ø  Jacob recounts God's blessing to him at Luz in Canaan, promising him numerous descendants and the land as an everlasting covenant.

Ø  Jacob claims/adopts Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own, equal to his other sons Reuben and Simeon.

Ø  Jacob recalls the death of Rachel, Joseph's mother, and her burial near Bethlehem.

Ø  Jacob, with dim eyesight, asks who the boys are, and Joseph introduces them.

Ø  Jacob expresses joy at seeing Joseph and his grandsons.

Ø  Joseph positions his sons for the blessing, with Manasseh on Jacob's right and Ephraim on his left.

Ø  Jacob crosses his hands, placing his right hand on Ephraim, the younger, and his left on Manasseh, the firstborn.

Ø  Jacob blesses Joseph and his sons, invoking the God of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, his Shepherd and the Angel who redeemed him.

Ø  Jacob prays for the boys to carry on his name and grow into a multitude.

Ø  Joseph tries to correct Jacob, pointing out Manasseh is the firstborn.

Ø  Jacob insists, prophesying that Ephraim will be greater than Manasseh.

Ø  Jacob blesses them, stating Israel will use their names in blessings.

Ø  Jacob tells Joseph he is about to die but assures him God will be with him and return him to the land of his fathers.

Ø  Jacob gives Joseph a special portion of land he took from the Amorites. (Hebrew Shekem)

Jacob, the patriarch is nearing his death. He is seemingly bedridden and ill. Joseph is informed of it and without taking much time goes to see his elderly father. Joseph has great respect, care and concern for his father despite his status, duties and responsibilities as a prince in Egypt. Those of us that have elderly parents must not be too occupied and busy to see and care for them. It gives them such a great joy  to see their children and grandchildren and we see this with Jacob here in this chapter. Jacob even gathers his strength to sit up when joseph arrives.

Jacob immediately begins to recount his encounter with God Almighty (El-Shaddai), in a place called Luz (Bethel, the house of God) and how God promised him blessings of many descendants as well as land. Part of the believers faith is to always remember the promises of God. Without putting that in remembrance, it is impossible to exercise our faith in God and ultimately impossible to please God or receive any good from Him.

On the day that the Ark of the Covenant was brought to the city of David, Jerusalem, from the house of Obed-Edom, king David sang a song with these words: Remember his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, ¹⁶ the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, ¹⁷ which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, ¹⁸ saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, as your portion for an inheritance.”(1 chronicles 16:15-18, NLT)

Remembering God’s promises is an expression of our faith in God, in trusting him to be faithful to keep His word. In the previous chapter we reminded ourselves that the promises of God are in Christ Jesus, Yes and Amen. Remembering God’s promises shows that our confidence  in God is unwavering. The writer of Hebrews emphasizes the need for believers to be confident about God’s promises in Christ Jesus and His second coming.

 He writes: ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful….³⁵ Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. ³⁶ For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. ³⁷ For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; ³⁸ but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:23, 35-38, ESV)

The second coming of Christ and the bodily resurrection of saints are possibly the greatest promises of God to the New Testament believer. We ought to look forward to it with all anticipation and excitement, just like Jacob here does not lose sight of the Promised Land and the promise  of many descendants, the greatest promises to Abraham his forefather and to him too, even when he is in a foreign land and in ill health, and towards the end of his life.

 It is on the basis of this promise to Abraham and which was followed up with himself, that Jacob will proceed to bless Joseph’s sons and even his own sons, the twelve brothers in the next chapter. You see, brethren, whenever we want to claim God’s blessing over our lives or the lives of other people, we must base those claims on the written word of God; the Bible. It is misguided to go about claiming blessings all over if we don’t have a clear promise of the same in the Bible. The “name-it-claim it”, “confess-to-possess” kind of attitude to God’s blessings is in most cases self-deception because it is largely never founded on any true promises of Scripture. It is in most cases the result of the infamous “prosperity gospel” that teaches that believers can receive every wild wish that they might have so long as they have “enough faith” to ask for it.

Prosperity preachers claim that the blessings that they assure their followers are based in the Bible, while, more often than not, they haphazardly quote the Bible out context to prove their point thereby misleading their followers. In fact, God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are like the bedrock of the prosperity gospel. The blessings and promises that came along with the Abrahamic covenant are usually taken out of their right application context and are applied in an unlimited fashion to the New Testament believer.

What the proponents and preachers of prosperity seem to miss is that the material blessings applicable in the Abrahamic covenant, translate to spiritual blessings in the New Testament believer. A clear case in point is actually one of the purported proof-texts that is used to claim that we NT believers have received the same material blessings of Abraham, the wealth and riches.  The verse is Galatians 3:14. We shall quote here form the NIV. The first part of the verse says, “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus..” This particular part of the verse has been used to say that the NT believer has become a partaker of all the material blessings of Abrahamic covenant.

But this could not be further from the truth and that can be easily proved by just reading the last part of the same verse. It says:  so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. The point here is that the blessing given to Abraham translates and applies to the NT believer in the Holy Spirit; His gifts and graces, His fruit and works. In fact, while Abraham received material blessings, he received a gift worth more than those, and that gift is the one that the Apostle Paul is writing about here as having been received by the NT believer the very same way, by faith, that Abraham received it, but now through faith in Christ.

This is clearly illustrated in this same chapter in verses 6-9 as follows: So also Abraham “believed God, and it was CREDITED to him as RIGHTEOUSNESS.” ⁷ Understand, then, that those who have FAITH are children of Abraham. ⁸ Scripture foresaw that God would JUSTIFY the Gentiles by faith, and announced the GOSPEL in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be BLESSED through you.” ⁹ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (NIV)

A proper reading of the above verse makes a few truths clear. One, that the unifying factor between Abraham and us NT believers is FAITH. Second that the greatest credit or token that father Abraham received because of faith in God is RIGHTEOUSNESS. Thirdly, that the blessing of Abraham has trickled down to us in form of JUSTIFICATION. And fourth, that is the BLESSING that is preached in and through the GOSPEL. That, brothers and sisters, is the proper reading in context of the verse in Galatians about us been partakers of the blessings of Abraham.

When we read the verse in its proper context and let the bible speak for itself, therefore deriving our teaching out of the text of scripture, that is called exegesis. It is the proper way of reading and interpreting scripture. However, what most prosperity preachers do is to cherry pick bible verses and force their strange teachings into the verses thereby importing those teachings into the text. That is called eisegesis. Believers need to be aware and alert not to be misled by such false teachers.

Now, am I saying that God has not promised good things in material blessing to the NT believer? Not at all! All I am saying here is that to the NT testament believer the focus is not on material blessing but the spiritual blessing. The apostle Paul describes the spiritual blessing of a believer in detail in his letter to the church at Ephesus especially in chapter one. We shall highlight a few verses here:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace ⁸ that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, ⁹ he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:3-10, NIV)

We cannot exhaust the topic of blessing here, but it would be inadequate to conclude a discussion on the topic without talking about the teachings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount regarding true blessedness. In these passage in Matthew 5:3-12 and which has come to be famously known as “the Beatitudes” Jesus brings a very different  perspective of what it means to be truly blessed and happy. It is something that I have not heard any prosperity preacher teach about as being part of the blessing they preach about as being the portion or inheritance of the believer. The reason they might shy away from teaching from this passage is because it goes completely contrary to their narrow-minded understanding of what it means to be blessed. The passage lists things like being poor in the spirit, mourning, meekness, persecution as being part of being blessed. Of course those do not go well with prosperity preaching.

One thing we can also say is that while spiritual blessings are  clearly the reserve of the believer, the same cannot be said about material blessing. There is evidence in scripture to adequately demonstrate that God in His sovereignty and goodness has decreed and made available material blessings upon all of humanity and indeed all living organisms.  The psalmist declares: The eyes of all look expectantly to You, And You give them their food in due season. 16 You open Your hand And satisfy the desire of every living thing. (Psalm 145:15-16, NKJV)

 Again, and going back to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus while teaching his followers about loving their enemies, gave them the example of how God gives his good gifts to both the just (righteous) and  unjust (unrighteous). He says about the Father: for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:45b, NKJV). Someone has commented on this verse as follows: God makes no distinction between the evil and the righteous in this instance—He gives good gifts to both of them. There will be a time of judgment in the future, but, until then, God graciously gives good things, even to those who hate Him. He gives the blessing of rain to the just and the unjust alike. Wicked people, people who mock Him and even deny His existence still get to enjoy good weather, good food, the love of family, and a great many other things. (https://www.gotquestions.org/rain-just-unjust.html)

I must also clarify here, concerning God’s blessings, that I don’t mean to say that it is of no benefit living a righteous life in terms of positioning oneself for God’s earthly blessings. The writer of the proverbs actually says: The LORD’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. (Proverbs 3:33, ESV). What I think this verse in Proverbs is revolving around is that, God as the sovereign judge of the universe executes justice by making the wicked suffer the consequences of their evil dealings while protecting the righteous from the evil that comes from the actions of the ungodly people. That way, the evil person suffers a curse while the righteous enjoys God’s favor.

I also expect that most people in thinking about the blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience to God will go quickly to the book of Deuteronomy Chapter  28. However, one thing to point out quickly regarding this is that when we consider that passage in in true context, we find that it is part of the Mosaic covenant which was exclusively between God and the nation of Israel and may not apply to the Gentile world, which most of us Christians are part of. Our proper motivation for obedience to God is only the spiritual and heavenly blessing that come from it as discussed in the earlier paragraphs in this discussion. Otherwise, it would mean that every person who has plenty of material possessions is God fearing and righteous and everyone who is lacking materially is not obedient enough. And that would be untrue scripturally and practically.

From my study on this topic of blessing, I realize that nearly every time the Bible talks of a blessing that comes upon a righteous person, it has the meaning of heavenly, spiritual blessing rather than earthly material blessing. So, next time a preacher is giving you “10 keys to unlocking God’s blessing” it is prudent to scrutinize their definition of blessing and the basis for it.

I have taken quite some liberty to address this particular concept of blessing because it is one of the hotly contested issues especially in the charismatic movement which I would consider myself to be part of. However, it is also quite a relevant theme in this whole story of Joseph particularly  chapters 48 and 49.

In this chapter 48, the centrality of the blessing is upon the two sons of joseph Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph instinctively tags them along when he goes to see his ailing father. Somehow, he knows that they needed to be there. Interestingly Jacob also started to talk about the two sons of joseph before he even saw or recognized their presence in this all-important meeting.  In this meeting, even before they were physically recognized, they were adopted as part of the direct and bona fide sons and heirs of Jacob. They are sons of a gentile wife and born in foreign land but they are now equally the sons and co-heirs of Jacob together with the other 12 sons. What a blessing! And it is all because of Joseph, the beloved son of Jacob.

This points to us too, who have been made joint-heirs with Christ even though we are of a gentile wife, the church. The bible says about us:  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. (Romans 8:14-17, NKJV).

Something to note here is how this passage of scripture helps explain how the 12 patriarchal tribes of Israel are constituted when we encounter them in the rest of scripture as they settle in the promised land. You will observe that whenever the tribes are listed, there is no tribe of joseph listed except for a passage in the book of revelation. Instead of joseph, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh are listed. But then that would mean 13 patriarchal tribes would be listed, yet there is an additional point of information that takes the number back to twelve. The Levites (descendants of Levi) are not allotted a territorial inheritance or counted in the census of the children of Israel as they are meant to be priests over all the other tribes. So, you take away joseph and Levi from the 12 sons of Jacob and instead bring in Ephriam and Manasseh and that’s how the 12 patriarchal tribes are constituted and listed in the rest of scripture.

Notice here, however, the role of joseph in bringing his sons to the father for the blessing and adoption. Our greater-than-joseph also has brought us near to His Father for adoption. Again, the Bible says: Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. ¹² In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. ¹³ But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:11-14, NLT)

Another thing to reiterate here is just how amazing the love of Jacob is for Joseph’s sons. Even before he realizes that they have been brought to his presence, he already blesses and adopts them. Brothers and sisters, isn’t that the story of every believer? That even before we manifested here on earth God, the Father, already  predestined us for His blessing of salvation in and through Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Church in Rome: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰ And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30, ESV)

Paul also writes to the Church at Ephesus, in a verse we have quoted again some paragraphs ago, and says:  just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, ⁵ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:4-5, NKJV) In the above two verses I take the view of God’s predestination to be pegged on His foreknowledge of those who would accept His free gift of salvation. This is in contrast to deterministic foreordination as Calvinists would propose.

Jacob is elated to meet joseph’s sons; he rejoiced that he had not only seen joseph again but also his sons. This is a case of God doing abundantly exceedingly more than we think or imagine. Matthew Henry comments, “How often God, in his merciful providences, outdoes our expectations, and thus greatly magnifies his favours. He not only prevents our fears, but exceeds our hopes”

 He asks for them to be brought closer for the blessing by laying on of hands. In doing this, he places  Ephraim before Manasseh in terms of the blessing although Manasseh was older and naturally deserving of the bigger blessing. And this turn of events is not new in this family. Jacob himself took his elder brother’s birthright and he deliberately switches the blessing here too. A lot of times, God overlooks the natural and traditional to place his blessing and favor on whomever He wills.

This happened in the house of Jessee when the successor of king Saul was being chosen. All the obvious candidates were bypassed and the crown passed to the most unlikely, in human terms. God explained to the presiding priest over this exercise, Samuel, saying: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, ESV)

Matthew Henry comments, God, in bestowing his blessings upon his people, gives more to some than to others, more gifts, graces, and comforts, and more of the good things of this life. He often gives most to those that are least likely. He chooses the weak things of the world; raises the poor out of the dust. Grace observes not the order of nature, nor does God prefer those whom we think fittest to be preferred, but as it pleases him.

Jacob prophesies that joseph will also be carried back to Canaan. We discussed the centrality of the Promised Land in our previous chapter and why our ultimate focus must be on that heavenly city.

Jacob gives to joseph some extra land of in the land previously belonging to the Amorites.