Context & Key Themes
Genesis 48 records Jacob’s adoption and blessing of Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. In a move that echoes his own story, Jacob crosses his hands and gives the greater blessing to the younger son, overriding Joseph’s arrangement. The themes are the continuity of covenant blessing, the sovereign reversal of birth order that runs throughout Genesis, and the dying patriarch drawing Joseph’s Egyptian-born sons fully into the inheritance of Israel.
Key Verses
“And Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, who was the younger, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, crossing his hands (for Manasseh was the firstborn).” — Genesis 48:14
“By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, ‘God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh.'” — Genesis 48:20
Summary
After these things Joseph is told that his father is ill. He takes his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him to Jacob. Jacob summons his strength and sits up in bed. He tells Joseph: God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me and said to me that He would make me fruitful and multiply me and make me a company of peoples, and give this land to my offspring after me for an everlasting possession. And now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine as Reuben and Simeon are mine. Any children born to you after them shall be yours but shall be called by the names of their brothers in their inheritance.
Jacob looks up and sees the two boys and asks Joseph who they are. Joseph tells him: they are my sons whom God has given me here. Jacob says: bring them to me so I may bless them. His eyes are dim with age and he cannot see. Joseph brings them near and Jacob kisses and embraces them. He says to Joseph: I had not thought I would see your face, and behold God has let me see your offspring also.
Joseph places the boys before Jacob — Manasseh at Jacob’s right hand and Ephraim at his left. But Jacob crosses his hands, putting his right hand on Ephraim the younger and his left on Manasseh the firstborn. He blesses Joseph: the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys. In them let my name be carried on and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
Joseph sees that Jacob has put his right hand on Ephraim and it displeases him. He tries to move Jacob’s hand from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s. Jacob refuses: I know, my son, I know. Manasseh also shall become a people and he also shall be great. Nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he. He sets Ephraim before Manasseh. He tells Joseph: behold I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers.
Reflection
Jacob’s adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons is an act of extraordinary love toward Joseph. Joseph’s sons are half-Egyptian, born in Egypt to an Egyptian mother, raised in Pharaoh’s court. Jacob reaches across all of that and says: they are mine as Reuben and Simeon are mine. The Egyptian grandsons become full sons of Israel, inheritors of the covenant promise. Joseph gets a double portion in Israel through his two sons — the birthright that Reuben forfeited through his sin comes to Joseph in this form.
The crossing of hands is deliberate and knowing. Jacob is nearly blind, but he is not confused. When Joseph tries to correct the positioning Jacob resists: I know, my son, I know. The man who received the firstborn’s blessing through deception now gives the greater blessing to the younger through sovereign intention, eyes open, fully aware of what he is doing. He has lived this story from the other side. He knows exactly what the crossed hands mean.
Jacob’s description of God in the blessing — the God who has been my shepherd all my life long, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil — is the theological summary of a life that by Jacob’s own admission has been full of evil days. He has been shepherded through all of it. Not spared from it. Shepherded through it. There is a difference, and Jacob at the end of 147 years knows the difference completely.