Jacob/Israel is dying and calls for Joseph’s children first so he could bless them. Jacob/Israel places his right hand on Ephraim the younger and his left hand on Manasseh the elder which is wrong. This is interesting since Jacob was younger than his brother Esau and ended up with the blessing and the birthright. In Gen. 48:14, even though Jacob is old and blind it says he did this knowingly and wittingly guiding his hands, it was intentional. It displeased Joseph and he tried to switch his father’s hands back but it was to late and Jacob said in v.19, “I know it, my son I know it,” but Ephraim the younger will be greater than Manasseh and become a multitude of nations. Remember, it was Reuben, Gad and Manasseh that stayed on the east side of the Jordan and did not settle in the Promised Land, but on it’s border, on the banks, on the threshold.

Note if you will Jacob/Israel’s ‘Prayer of Blessing’ in v.15-16, ‘He prays to the God of his fathers; The God Who fed them; The Angel Who redeemed him to “Bless the lads;” He asked for his name, the name of Jacob/Israel to be named upon them; That means all the promises to Jacob are available to Ephraim and Manasseh; Plus the names of Abraham and Isaac. WOW! What a blessing!Have we lost sight of the magnitude of “The Blessing?” I think we have! We bless our food, our buildings, our plans and trips, our endeavors, our money, motorcycles, boats, cars, you name it and we bless it, even our sneezes but we don’t invoke  blessings on our children, neighbors or friends regularly, why? I think there is more to this principle than we realize and it was God in Genesis one and two Who first established the ‘Blessing’ especially for multiplication; Gen. 1:22, “Be fruitful and multiply,” fish and birds; v.28, “Be fruitful and multiply,” mankind. Then here in our text v.16, “Bless the lads…And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” Jacob blessed them and God did bless them and multiply them.

Jacob/Israel invokes a blessing on only these two grandchildren here, so Joseph receives a double blessing here, v.22; then he gets his blessing in Gen. 49:22-26. This double blessing should have been Reuben’s but he blew it, so it passed to Joseph, the first born of Rachel not Leah. Ephraim and Manasseh replace Joseph in the tribal break down making twelve tribes. The blessing seems to have a tremendous impact and significance, can I say power without causing a problem? Further personal study would seem appropriate on this matter, but in the context of our study this prayer of blessing is of tremendous importance as these two sons of Joseph form the tribe of Joseph.

Jacob/Israel continues in Gen. 49:1-33 to bless all of his sons; Reuben the first born, unstable as water, shall not excel because he committed fornication with his father’s concubine on his couch; Simeon and Levi were instruments of cruelty when they slaughtered  the men of Shechem for raping Dinah, they will be divided and scattered; Judah’s brothers shall praise him, he is a lion’s whelp, the Scepter shall not depart from Judah, it is through him the Messiah will come to establish His Kingdom; Zebulon will dwell by the sea and become a haven for ships; Issachar will be strong like a donkey, and serve and see that the land is pleasant and love it and serve it; Dan shall judge his people like a serpent in the road way; Gad shall triumph over his enemies like a troop and be victories at last; Asher shall yield bread and baked goods to feed the people; Napthali is like a deer let loose who gives words of beauty; Joseph is a fruitful bough by a wall of water and is to grow strong and multiply; Benjamin is a ravenous wolf to devour the prey and divide the spoil. v.28, “And blessed them; every one, according to his blessing, he blessed them.” Oh, my friend are we negligent in this vital area of our prayer life? Do we neglect to seek God’s will for our children to give them a rich blessing and heritage? Is it the money that we leave them that’s important or a rich spiritual heritage that is more important? In the world today it’s money that’s important, how much did your parents leave you in the will? Who got the house, the cars, the boat, the gold, the guns, the library? In the Scriptures those things are never mentioned once, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc, never once! How many sheep or goats did you get? Our priorities and values are way out of focus. This saint of God, this ‘Supplanter turned Supplicator’ learned what was most important and it was the spiritual blessings not the material. Jacob did not discuss how many sheep or shekels each son was to get but what God was going to bless each one with. Then he charges them to bury him in the Cave of Machpelah where Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah and Leah are buried. Interesting, he wants to be buried with Leah not with Rachel; God’s choice I believe, was Leah, who bore him Judah through whom the Messiah would come, Jacob’s choice was Rachel due to her physical beauty and it cost him dearly, she was so beautiful it made him weep, but Leah was God’s (Beshertah) soul mate, for him. It just took him 147 years to figure it out!

“The Power of Blessings” something we need to consider in our lives and ministries. The last thing this saint was to do was to give his sons his blessing, draw his feet into the bed and die! Are we that at peace with God that after we have blessed our children we can draw our feet into the bed and breathe our last breath and die? What a beautiful scene this must have been, Jacob/Israel is 147 years old, surrounded by his 12 sons who ranged in age from about 70 for Benjamin to about 95 for Reuben. “And Joseph fell upon his father’s face and wept upon him and kissed him.” Then Joseph ordered the servants and the physicians to embalm Jacob/Israel and the Egyptians mourned (bakah) to weep, bemoan, make lamentation with tears for 70 days. Although weeping is usually associated with distress or sorrow it is also a sign of joy, and all of the occurrences of this usage are found in the life of Jacob; Gen. 29: when he met Rachel; Gen. 33:4 when he met Esau after 20 years; Gen. 46:29 when he met Joseph again. It may be said that there is no genuine repentance apart from a bitter sense of sorrow over one’s sin, a sorrow so deep that it may quite properly issue in weeping. No indication of prayer other than other than who are you weeping or mourning to? Deut. 34:8 They wept and mourned for Moses for 30 days. Gen. 50:10-11 tells us that they mourned again for seven days (Sitting Shiva) in Canaan at the threshing floor of Atad before committing Jacob to the Cave of Machpelah, this is not prayer, it is mourning, wailing and lamenting.      “…Between The Lines…”

“LORD, may we be able to impart to our children a rich spiritual inheritance; And may we fully understand the importance and impact a prayer of blessing may have on an individual or a nation; And may we continue to bless the Jewish people as well as the Jewish Nation in our prayers daily, Gen. 12:1-3; Ps. 122:6. In ha shem Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen!”

“Portraits of Prayer in Genesis”  Jacob’s Final Blessings’