10. FATHER’S BLESSING
Gen 48 and 49:22-26
BACKGROUND: Joseph’s sons were a bit over 20 years of age. (They were born already before the beginning of the famine). Manasseh and Ephraim had been raised in the Egyptian upper classes: their other grandfather was a priest of the Ra-god.
1-6
Luz is same as Bethel where Jacob had seen the stairs leading to heaven (verse 3). The division of the tribe of Joseph into two parts guaranteed that there would be 12 tribes living in the Promised Land. The Levites were not allowed to posses any land, because the Lord was their inheritance.
- How did Joseph probably feel when he received the message of his father’s illness (1)?
- Why did Joseph want to take his sons with him for the journey (1b-2)?
- What do you think; why did Jacob want to adopt Joseph’s sons (5)?
7-12
At least six decades had passed since Rachel’s, Joseph’s mother’s death.
- Now that Jacob was facing death he wanted to tell Joseph something about his mother. Why?
- What was Joseph’s relationship to his father like now, when he was about to die?
- How did the children probably felt beside their grandfather’s deathbed?
- When they after 400 years left Egypt to go back to Israel, the descendants of Manasseh and Ephraim were among them. How was Joseph able to prevent his sons from becoming Egyptians and gentiles?
- What should we do so that our children would not become gentiles in the midst of the post-Christian culture?
13-20
Manasseh was Joseph’s firstborn, but Jacob gave “his right hand’s blessing” to Ephraim. We see that the tribe of Ephraim became thereafter the biggest tribe in Israel. Jacob was the first person in the Bible who talked about God as a good shepherd (15).
- What was Jacobs assessment of his father’s and his grandfather’s life (15a)?
- What is Jacob’s final assessment of his own life (15b-16)?
- On what grounds can Jacob say he had been redeemed from every evil (16a); wasn’t then the death of Rachel or the disappearance of Joseph a misfortune after all?
- The words spoken on the deathbed are usually remembered by the family forever. What would you like to say as your last words?
21-22
The word “ridge of land” is Shechem in Hebrew. Jacob had bought the land (the only spot of land he ever owned in his lifetime) in Shechem, but had to give it up because of the massacre his sons had caused there after the rape of their sister.
- God had promised to give Jacob the land of Canaan. What was Jacob thinking now about this promise? Compare the verses 4 and 21.
- How can the inconsistency in verse 22 be explained: did Jacob buy that spot of land or did he took it into his possession by fighting (cf. 33:19)
49:22-26
Jacob blessed all his sons, but here we will deal only with the blessing that Joseph received.
- What did Jacob foresee about Joseph’s and his descendants’ future (22-24)?
- What are the blessings of the skies above and the blessings of the deep springs below? What have they been in your life (25-26)?
- Joseph was a noble man and the prince among his brothers (26b). Why didn’t God make him the forefather of the Messiah, but instead Judah who was nowhere near as good a man as Joseph was.
Summarizing question:
- Where can you find Jesus in this chapter?
IN CONCLUSION: Joseph never saw Shechem with these eyes, but his bones indeed were buried there after 400 years (Joshua 24:32). And there Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman and said to her: 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4: 13-14)
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