Joseph's sons blessed

Good morning. As we get to these last few chapters here in Genesis, we're obviously getting to some times that are very momentous. Here is the very end of Jacob's life, and yet those he's leaving behind, they're either in the middle of it and some the very beginnings of it. And so Jacob is kind of handing off, you know, here are the important things that he's trying to make sure are set in place there.

As I was studying through this, it made me think of my grandfather. My grandfather was a man who loved the Lord since he was 20. Some of you may have some knowledge of Great Bend, Kansas. That's where he was born and raised the first 20 years of his life. And he came at about that age, 20, to know the Lord. And he lived until age 97, so he didn't reach 130. So I guess you could say he died young. But he lived to age 97.

And I went over to see him not too long before he went home to be with the Lord. And I brought my guitar with me and we just sat there in the lobby of the place where he was at and just sang songs together, you know. And it was a pretty neat time. But what was really neat was for me to be able to spend time with him and to know, you know, he's got no issues hanging out there. He settled with the Lord. And he'd talk to the people he'd need to talk with. And so for he and I to sit down and just spend kind of the last times that we would have together, that he and I just singing about the Lord and praising the Lord, that was just perfect. It was just right.

And Jacob is kind of having one of these times where he wants everything to be just right too. He wants to make sure things get taken care of and handled properly. And so that's a part of what we're going to see in today's chapter. Matter of fact, that's the most of it. He wants to make sure everything's in place as it ought to be.

Yeah, as we saw last week, his journey has been rough, this guy Jacob. It's been difficult. But what we're going to see today and in the next couple of chapters, he's finishing well. Even though he's been through quite a time, he is finishing quite well. And last week we reviewed the highlights of his life. You could call them the lowlights of his life easily because he did have a pretty rough time. There were many times when he should have done something differently. There were times when he should have done something, something at all.

And he did not. But remember, as we saw previously, Jacob, coming in front of Pharaoh at age 130, told Pharaoh, my years are fewer than my father's. And that was true. But he also summarizes years, they've been unpleasant. That was the way he put it all together in a word. As we're going to see in today's chapter, we began to see it at the end of last chapter, and we'll see all the way through the end there. Though Jacob's years had been rough, he is truly finishing well. And what do we mean by that?

He's learning to see his life from God's perspective. Even though he looks at it and he says, yeah, I made some big mistakes, I still see the Lord's hand in everything that took place. Even through my mistakes, I still see the Lord's hand. He talks in this chapter about what God did. And that's interesting. He talks about God. When it comes down to life's final hours, life's final days, it's what did God do? What did God say? What will God do? Those are the things he talks about. Isn't it interesting?

That's what he concludes at the end of his life of many years, what's really important. What God did, what God said, what God will do. He refers to God both in his narrative and in his blessings, particularly on the ones he blesses, not only in this chapter but in the next one. He sometimes uses different names for God or terms for God's role in his life, and we'll take a look at that particularly.

So now when Jacob's life is drawing to its final days and hours, he talks about what's important. He boils it down. When you haven't got that many hours and days left, what do you talk about? You talk about what matters. About what God did, about what God said, and about what God will do. So he's thinking in these last days and hours about what really matters.

He may have been silent in the past when he should have said something, and we know that he did. He kept quiet when his sons erred. He kept quiet when he should have given his sons instruction. But he's certainly not quiet now. Here when his strength is reaching its last, he says, there's something I got to say.

And I don't have lots of energy and lots of time left, so let's boil it down to what really counts. That's what he's talking about. He's choosing his words wisely because he doesn't have energy and time for a lot of them. And his real concern is what's the influence on the next generation. He is very concerned that he, spiritually and morally speaking, passed the baton. He says, I may have blown it for years and years, but I've got it very clear in my mind what's important. I've got it very clear in my mind what matters. His opportunity for having an influence is obviously very short.

He's ill, and Joseph hears about it, apparently with the understanding that, no, this might be the last illness. And it's not a minor one. This is the final. So Joseph brings his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. Jacob is certainly ill, but seeing his sons, he gathers up his strength for the important ceremonies to follow with final blessings. It's just like with my grandfather.

I mean, I was aware it was his last days, but you know what? He had time to sing. He had energy to sing. And we didn't stop because he ran out of energy. When it came to singing about the Lord, yeah, he could pull up the energy for that. That was worth it. He gathers up energy for this ceremony that's about to take place and with the final blessings. He realizes, no, this is important. I don't have much energy left, but for this I've got it. Manasseh, who is the older one, and Ephraim, who is the younger one, are in their early to middle 20s. Probably the oldest is about 26. Ephraim may be 20, somewhere in that range.

Jacob tells Joseph that God Almighty, this is El Shaddai, had appeared to him at a location called Luz, otherwise known as Bethel. Here's the map we studied it some chapters back. This is when Jacob was on his way up to Laban's household to the north.

The Lord blessed him there and in an appearance, in a dream, made promises to Jacob about his descendants and about the land. And Jacob recounts those in front of Joseph and the two sons. God said that He would make Jacob fruitful and numerous. And so that was going to be fulfilled through certainly these sons here. God also said that he would give Jacob the land to his possessions, excuse me, to his descendants as an everlasting possession.

So there was this land promise. He'd already started that with Abraham. He'd continued it with Isaac and now confirmed with Jacob, and now that they're outside of the land, he's wanting to make sure that those that are left behind know what this promise is about. We've shown this map previously and I want to make copies available next week, but this is ultimately from Genesis 15 and elaborated on in Ezekiel 38. This is ultimately the land that the Lord promised to Abraham Isaac and Jacob. It goes all the way from the Mediterranean there to the Euphrates River and includes practically a half dozen different countries now. This is ultimately the land that the Lord has promised to the descendants of Jacob.

Now, we're not going to see the word adoption or adopt or adopting explicitly and yet What we're about to see described in this chapter is essentially Jacob adopting Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh. He is adopting them as his own and giving them an inheritance here. Jacob tells Joseph that these oldest two sons are his. He's not taking them away. That's not his point. After all, Jacob's going to be gone here in a short period of time. So he's not taking them away.

But he's giving them a position, Ephraim and Manasseh, he's giving them a position as if they were his immediate and direct sons. And he does that by making it clear. He means these two are just like Reuben and Simeon and all the rest. Just like those. So he has the number one and number two sons named just like those are his. So here's an adoption process going on. He's legally adopting them while he still has hours and time left to do so.

We've shown this chart in the past. It's basically here's Jacob and two wives and the two concubines and the immediate offspring and Joseph's two sons Manasseh and Ephraim. So that's the comparison that Jacob made. These two sons would be just like Reuben and Simeon, my number one and number two.

I'm adopting them. That's what he's saying. He's adopting them as his own, as if they were his. Not to take them away from Joseph, no, not that, but to give them privilege. The adoption is for the sake of tribal and family inheritance. He says, I want these two to have the same rights of family inheritance, of inheritance in the land that God promised. I want them to have the same as all the other brothers.

One of the evidences of that shows up in Joshua 11.23.

So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to the divisions by their tribes. And in the context Ephraim and Manasseh are included in that. They're sometimes referred to as half-tribes, and that's not my name, that's what the Bible says, okay? Half-tribes, it doesn't mean that they have a half a position, but simply that the Lord squeezed the two of them into the place of Joseph there. Here is a map of Israel as the land was divided up at the time of Joshua, at least this was the intent.

Here is the land given to Manasseh along the coast. From the coast into the River Jordan, here is the land of Ephraim. So those two were given land just like the rest of the tribes, except for Levi, who had no inheritance in the land, and that's why everybody was to give a tenth to the sons of Levi, right?

There's also East Manasseh. Why? A great number of people. They apportioned the land by the number of people and by the capacity of the land. So there's both locations for Manasseh. So the adoption's being carried out, however, in honor of Jacob's most beloved wife, Rachel. Here's Jacob having basically four wives. He really didn't intend that. That's just how it all worked out. He really, probably if you'd ask him in his heart of hearts, he said, I just wanted Rachel. I just wanted Rachel.

And yet his beloved wife, Rachel, had a short life because she died right after the birth of Benjamin, Joseph's younger brother. And so Jacob makes mention here of Rachel and is doing this adoption in honor and in memory of Rachel. Perhaps one of the things that is going on in his mind is if Rachel had lived longer, she would have had more. And so I'm adopting these, the ones that she could have had. Perhaps that's in his mind. But Rachel died, and as we'll find out in the next chapter, Leah has actually died by this time too. So the adoption ceremony begins. Jacob asks this question, whose are these of the sons? And we might conclude that that's because of poor eyesight. Yeah, he did have poor eyesight, that's clear.

But likely this is actually a ceremonial question. When almost five years ago, Kurt and Becky were getting married, I walked Becky up the aisle, which just blew my circuits, but anyway, I walked Becky up the aisle and my dad, who did the ceremony, asked, not because he didn't know, but because it's a ceremonial question, who gives this woman to be married? Okay? So it may be that that's the nature of his question here. I suspect that it is, that it's not so much a, you know, who are these? I think he probably knew, but more of a, this is the way the ceremony goes, okay? Who are these? You need to name them because that's the way the adoption ceremony proceeds.

So Joseph tells Jacob, that these are his sons, the ones that God has given him. And it's interesting, that's where the credit is given to, isn't it? Our children are given as a trust to us by the Lord, aren't they? They're given by the Lord to us. We are entrusted with them for whatever time the Lord gives them to us. They're entrusted into our hands, but they're His, aren't they? They're really His entrusted to us.

And Joseph recognizes that. Jacob asked that Joseph bring them closer that he might bless them as his own adopted sons. Bring them here so that I can put my hands on them. So bringing them close, Jacob kisses and embraces them. Now, mind you, these are men in their twenties, probably about the first half of their twenties. And he shows his affection for them.

Joseph himself, in a dramatic reversal, bows down to his father. Why do we say that's a dramatic reversal? Remember, It is Joseph himself at age 17 that had two dreams. And in those dreams it was clear even his father would bow down to him. He has been for the last 17 years here in Egypt. Here's Joseph in Egypt who is second only to Pharaoh. And in a sense, Jacob is a guest. But in this situation, In this situation, Joseph, who has the second in command power in all of the land of Egypt, at a time when his presence and his power is extremely important, here he bows to his father. Why?

He is yielding to the adoption of the sons. He says, yes, go ahead and do this adoption. I'll yield to this and bow to your place in adopting my sons." So he goes along with this adoption and he shows honor to his father. Joseph positions his sons before his father, figuring according to long-standing tradition that the oldest would receive the right hand blessing. So, okay, take the oldest, put him right in front of the right hand, okay? And take the youngest and put him right in front of the left hand, since he's the younger one. And that way, the oldest one's going to get the senior blessing, if you will. The blessing of the eldest son. That's the way it ought to be, right? That's our tradition. And if we weren't Jewish, there wouldn't be any traditions, right? So that's our tradition. So that's what Joseph is all prepared for here. Jacob begins by crossing his arms.

Oh no! So as to place his right hand, traditionally giving the blessing to the oldest son, on the youngest son, Ephraim. I can imagine Joseph, oh no! Dad, in his old age, has really gotten this confused. So Joseph is disturbed by Jacob's crossing of arms and by Jacob placing his right hand on the head of the younger son. Dad! You got it all messed up. Joseph tries to correct the problem as he sees it. Dad, you got the arms all crossed. What are you doing that? I positioned them in just the right place and now you crossed your arms.

It doesn't make any sense. Dad, don't you understand the tradition? You're older than I am. You should understand the tradition. Well, this is what Jacob says in verses 15 and 16. Let's take careful note of what he says. Let's look at the first line there.

The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked. Notice, he's in a land, Egypt, where there are how many gods? About 700 gods. Okay? So he doesn't just say God or a god. He's specific. The God. Okay? Definite article. This is that specific God. None of the others. None of the other 700 that are in this land. That one. The one before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked. That one.

The God, again, definite article, that specific God, who has been my shepherd. This is the first reference in the Bible. We're towards the end of Genesis, but it's the first reference in the Bible to calling God our shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. This is the first reference to that. The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day.

Does that mean that he did everything right? No. He had gone through the list of all the things he'd done wrong, so that was abundantly clear. He said my life was unpleasant and he knew why. But he recognized in the midst of all those ways that I've blown it, God was still my shepherd all that time. When I didn't say something to my sons and should have, God was still my shepherd then. When I did this instead of that, when I made that decision instead of this other one, God is still my shepherd. He's still shepherding me even when I blow it.

Isn't it a wonderful thing for us to realize, even when we blow it, the Lord doesn't say, Ah! Burn! Ah! That's enough. When we blow it, the Lord instead remains our shepherd. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that great news? Isn't that comforting? That's really good to know. Even when I blow it, He's my shepherd. That's cool. That's really cool.

The angel who has redeemed me, and this is also another first. Here we are towards the end of the book of Genesis, but it's the first time that God is called a redeemer or having redeemed. Any reference to redeeming with respect to God in the whole Bible.

The angel, now it's, I've capitalized it, your Bibles may not have that, but I've capitalized it because it's in reference to God. One of the points we've made previously, and we'll bring it out here again, is there is this slide here, why the angel of the Lord is not the same as an angel of the Lord. I'm not going to go through the details on it, but let me just make this point. The angel of the Lord, from all the evidence that we have, he shows up numerous times, not only here in Genesis, but also in the Old Testament again and again. The angel of the Lord we take as the pre-incarnate Son of God. Who is that? Jesus Christ before being born of Mary. Just to be very clear. So here is Jacob. the angel who has redeemed me. Jesus Christ, before he was born of Mary, who has redeemed me.

Then he begins in the rest of verse 16, saying, that God, the one that I have referred to three times now, that God who has this identification and this character and who has done these things, he is my shepherd, he is my redeemer, that God is the one I want to bless these lads. that one. May my name live on in them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac live on in them, and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. May the Lord fulfill His promise that I have a great number of descendants. So here he goes about blessing the younger one.

Now, there are several instances where the Old Testament has the younger one being given a preference over the older. In some cases, the youngest one. We have an example of Isaac and Ephraim. As a matter of fact, we can put Joseph on the list, right? Joseph given a place of preeminence over his brothers.

He's not the oldest. He's almost right near the youngest. Not the youngest, but very close. And yet the Lord had him as the one given preference at this time. Moses was a younger one. Gideon was a younger one. David was the youngest of all. So young and inconsequential in the mind of everyone else, in fact, that all the other sons of Jesse were lined up and Samuel says, no, none of those. Do you have another? Oh yeah, but he's off taking care of the sheep. That's the one I'm talking about. A key point from this, I think, is to look at it. God may make his own choices and appointments as he sees fit. And it's important for us to recognize that.

How many of you here this morning are younger or youngest in your family, in the group? Younger or youngest? Probably a number of you. And it's key to recognize that the Lord has a place for those people. I have known of circumstances where the youngest person in the family has a hard time being recognized as ever growing up and being an adult. My youngest brother is almost 10 years younger than me. He's pushing 50, which tells you where I'm going. Anyway, he's pushing 50. Okay. And as he's pushing 50, still some family members struggle with, you know, letting him be close to 50.

But it's important, I think, to really recognize is the Lord may call various people in various places and let the Lord appoint people to where He has them. And don't jump to the world's conclusions. Sometimes that happens in a church context where people think, oh, that guy is the head of a company or something like that, therefore he'll make a perfect elder. Well, not necessarily.

So the real question is, who is God appointed in our families? It doesn't matter if you're not the oldest one in your family, but when God puts you at the head of a family, be there. Be there. And we need to let the person be there. that God has appointed. It's important that we acknowledge and recognize the ones that God has put in place.

Well, after insisting, contrary to Joseph's objection, on placing his right hand on Ephraim, Jacob proceeds to bless Joseph's sons, giving to Ephraim, the younger son, the hand and honor and portion due usually to the eldest son. No, this crossing the hands is intentional. That's exactly what I had in mind because that's what God wants.

I am going to cross my hands. So Jacob closes the ceremony here in the chapter with the notice. He says, I'm about to die. I'm close to the end here. But he says, God will be with you, Joseph. and he'll bring you back to the land. Of course, we know from retrospect and even from a prophecy earlier in Genesis that it would be his descendants who would go back to the land. So we'd ask this question here.

Whatever happened to Ephraim and Manasseh? Whatever happened to them? Well, both of these men, they were young men at the time, became the head of a half-tribe in Israel. Ephraim did, in fact, take a prominent place in Israel. The northern ten tribes came to be known as Israel or actually nicknamed Ephraim. Even when we went through the book of Isaiah, we recognized that. Even though these two were the sons of the beloved Joseph, Even though they were blessed by Jacob, their descendants didn't make some of their own choices for the worse. The half-tribe of Ephraim under Joseph, though the prominent tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel, became idolatrous. The first instance of that is in Judges 17, as you have there in your handout. And there were subsequent instances as well. Ephraim, out of that tribe, became foremost in the defection from supporting the House of David, God's own appointment. Ephraim helped and led even in the rebellion against the House of David. And they became an ally of the enemies of Judah.

Judah being the southern kingdom here in the map that you see. and Judah being the prominent tribe. By the way, that's an interesting pattern. The northern kingdom, Israel, known by its prominent tribe, Ephraim. The southern kingdom, known by its prominent tribe, Judah. What's interesting is that we get to Revelation chapter 7, which is looking at a time yet to come. Ephraim's name is replaced by Joseph. I think because of the idolatry. I think because of not being faithful to God's intended house of David. Joseph's name instead is put in that place. I think one of the things as we look at this and kind of looking at the story of Ephraim and Manasseh, even with the best of influences, people do make their choices. Excuse me.

On the one hand, as we've been going through the book of Genesis, one of the things that we've said here is we've been urging for parents to take their proper godly role in guiding the children who have been entrusted to them. And notice I specifically chose that word, guiding the children who have been entrusted to them. We urge that. We saw what happened in the lives of the patriarchs when they failed to do that. Imagine, here is Isaac and Rebekah, and they have favorites. The mother helps the son to deceive the father. Something is desperately wrong here. Jacob's sons go off, and they go off, and they go off track again. And he doesn't even correct them.

He should, of course, have been giving them instruction all along. So we do urge that and yet we see the example with these. Even with the best of beginnings, people make their own choices. Even with the best of beginnings, people make their own choices. I think that's something for us to look at as parents, as grandparents.

This boy can weigh heavy on your heart. You can weigh heavy on your heart. You look at your own kids. You look at grandkids. And if that isn't personally your circumstances, you may know somebody in that place. It can be a tough thing to bear to watch someone have made a choice. You look at it and say, oh, I wish. And then that's the time for the I shouldas and I couldas and I wouldas, right? But important to recognize. People do make their own choices. People do stand before the Lord.

One of the key things we made reference to earlier as we go through this chapter is Jacob made repeated reference to God did this, God said this, and God will do that. God will be with you, he told, Jacob told Joseph. But we can take that same thing, too, and refer to and recall and encourage other believers with, God did, God said, God will. We, like Jacob, can count upon and testify to what God has done. Scripture, in fact, tells us to do exactly that. In Romans 6, and of course we don't have time to address the full chapter, For the death that he died, Christ, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God.

Even so, consider. Reckon, as it has in the King James. Essentially, it's an accounting term. Count. Count yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Consider what God did. Count on it. What did God do? As believers, we can do just like Jacob did. Here's what God did.

And we can count on it. And we can tell others about it too. And we can encourage one another with that. We, like Jacob, can recall and counsel one another with what God has said is true. He's revealed what's true in His Word. We have the opportunity to do that.

One of the things we covered in the class held last year, Biblical Counseling, is we spent two weeks talking about how the Bible calls for us as believers to counsel one another, to come alongside. And so we can counsel one another in various ways. Sometimes that's encouragement. Sometimes that's an urging. But we can come alongside one another and say, God said this. God said that. Because we know it's true. Like Jacob, we can depend upon what God will do. One of them that's very clear, Jacob told Joseph God will be with you.

What's really neat, this verse in Hebrews 13.5, it's not on your handout there, so you might want to make note of it.

For He Himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. And do you know that the Greek behind that is written in the most emphatic form possible in the Greek language? Double. It cannot be said more emphatically in the Greek language. God will never, never leave you or forsake you.

Will you stumble? Yep. Will there be times when you blow it? Oh yeah. Will He leave you or forsake you in the midst of it? Nope. Not at all. Not even sort of. Not a chance. Matter of fact, that's what the never means there. Not the slightest chance. Not even remotely possible that He'll leave you or forsake you.

There are things that are written in Scripture that are meant to encourage us. The things that the Lord will do encourage one another about what the Lord will do. Encourage one another. He's faithful. We can count upon him to do that. He's faithful in character. That's who he is. That's who he always will be. We can depend upon that.

Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, We see these last hours, maybe the last days, but last hours anyway, of Jacob's life and he is finally concluding what is important. And we just pray that we would draw from that. We pray that we ourselves would come to a conclusion, hopefully not as late as Jacob, about what is important and that we would look as Jacob did at your perspective and acknowledge that it's what God did.

It's what you have said and what you will do. Those are the things that count. Those are the things in the end that really matter. And we do just thank you, Lord, for who you are. You are ever faithful. Thank you. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.