Crossed Hands and an Unexpected Blessing

This is the first time anyone in the Bible is said to be sick. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 87a) noticed it and said that until Jacob people died without warning, and Jacob asked for illness so he could take leave of his family. Joseph’s sons are named in birth order here, Manasseh first; it is the last time that order holds.

The bed is the one on which he bowed after Joseph’s oath (47:31), and the one into which he will “gather up his feet” when he dies (49:33). “Strengthened himself” means he gathered what strength he had to sit up for what he meant to say.

Jacob named that place Bethel twice (28:19; 35:15), yet here he calls it Luz, its old Canaanite name. He is speaking in Egypt of the town as it was when he first came there, a fugitive with a stone for a pillow.

Jacob quotes God’s words at Bethel (35:11–12) with changes. “A company of nations” becomes “a multitude of people”, and he adds “for an everlasting possession”, the phrase God used to Abraham in 17:8. He recites the promise that will make his next words stand.

Jacob puts Ephraim first before any hands are crossed. “As Reuben and Simeon” names the two eldest, both passed over in the next chapter. 1 Chronicles 5:1 explains that Reuben’s birthright “was given unto the sons of Joseph”, because he defiled his father’s bed.

No later children of Joseph are ever recorded; any would have been counted under Ephraim or Manasseh. This is why Israel still reckons twelve tribes when Joseph’s line counts twice and Levi receives no territory.

Rachel “died by me”, alai, literally “upon me”, the loss falling on him. Rashi read the verse as Jacob’s apology: he asks to be carried to Machpelah but did not carry Joseph’s mother there. “Padan” appears only here without “Aram”.

Jacob has lived seventeen years in Egypt near these grandsons, so the question may belong to a formal adoption, where the children are identified before they are claimed. His failing sight, stated in verse 10, may also be part of it.

“Whom God hath given me” recalls Jacob’s own answer to Esau: “The children which God hath graciously given thy servant” (33:5). “In this place” is Egypt, and Joseph names it without complaint.

Isaac’s eyes were “dim” with kahah, a word for fading (27:1). Jacob’s are kavedu, heavy. The kiss and embrace come before the blessing, and before anything is said about hands.

“I had not thought” is pillalti, from palal, to judge or reckon, the root of the Hebrew verb to pray. Jacob could not have imagined seeing Joseph’s face; now he has his sons too.

Taking children “from between his knees” marks the adoption, the knees being where children were received as one’s own: Bilhah bore children “upon my knees” for Rachel (30:3), and Joseph’s great-grandsons are “brought up upon Joseph’s knees” (50:23). Then the viceroy of Egypt bows to the ground before his father.

Because they face each other, Joseph’s right is his father’s left. Ephraim, held in Joseph’s right hand, stands at Jacob’s left; Manasseh, in Joseph’s left, at Jacob’s right. The firstborn is set squarely under the hand of honour, and the verse records every hand.

“Guiding his hands wittingly” translates sikkel et-yadav. The verb elsewhere means to act wisely, hence the KJV; others, comparing an Arabic word, render it “crossed his hands”. Both senses fit: the crossing is deliberate. The right hand was the hand of honour.

“Fed me” is ro’eh, “shepherded me”. It is the first time God is called a shepherd in the Bible, and it comes from a man who kept sheep all his life. In the next chapter he calls God “the shepherd, the stone of Israel” (49:24).

“Redeemed” is ga’al, its first use in the Bible: the act of a kinsman who buys back a relative’s land or freedom, as Boaz does in Ruth 4. “Grow into a multitude” is vayidgu, from dag, fish: let them teem like fish.

“It displeased him” is literally “it was evil in his eyes”. “He held up” is tamak, to grasp and support, the verb used when Aaron and Hur “stayed up” Moses’ hands (Exodus 17:12). Joseph takes hold of his father’s hand to move it.

“Not so, my father” is the only time Joseph contradicts Jacob. In 37:10 the father rebuked the son for a dream about rank; now the son tries to correct the father about rank.

In the wilderness census Manasseh numbered 52,700 and Ephraim 32,500 (Numbers 26:34, 37), so the younger’s greatness was not a matter of early numbers. By Moses’ blessing it was: “the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh” (Deuteronomy 33:17).

Jewish fathers still bless their sons on the eve of the Sabbath with these words: “God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh.” The blessing Jacob gives becomes the blessing Israel says. Genesis adds that he set the younger first, even in the formula.

“Behold, I die” is hinneh anokhi met. Joseph will say the same to his brothers at the end of the book, “I die: and God will surely visit you” (50:24). The promise of return is passed from one dying man to the next.

“Portion” is shekhem, a shoulder or ridge of land, and the same word as the city of Shechem. Joseph’s bones were later buried at Shechem, in the ground Jacob bought (Joshua 24:32), and John 4:5 names “the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph”.