“Joseph’s Double Portion”

(Genesis 48)

Well Israel has now been in Egypt for 17 years. The famine has been over for
some 12 years, but God’s plan for His people in Egypt has not yet been completed.
However, Jacob has just about come to the end of his pilgrimage in this world. The time
has come for him to die. But before he does, there is something very important that he
needs to do: he needs to pass on the covenant blessings to his children, the covenant that
the Lord first made with Abraham, then with Isaac, and then with Jacob, the one which
included the promise of the land – which pointed to the new earth – and the seed – the
numerous children that Abraham would have, which pointed to those who would believe
in Christ from both the Jews and the Gentiles – and the blessing – the blessing that all the
nations would receive through the seed of Abraham, who is Christ. In our passage this
evening, we see Jacob give to Joseph a special blessing before he calls all of his sons
together to give them his final blessing. He gives Joseph a double blessing, or a double
portion of the blessings, in his sons Ephraim and Manasseh. This blessing comes through
the promise made to Abraham, in that it is a blessing of great fruitfulness, but
interestingly enough, these two tribes aren’t the line through whom Messiah will come.
Why does Jacob give it to Joseph then? He most likely gave it to him because of the
blessing that the Lord had made Joseph to him. Not only was he his most-beloved son,
the son of his dead wife Rachel, but he was also the son the Lord used to save him and
his household, so that the promise made to Abraham might come to its fulfillment in
Christ. What I want us to see from our text this evening are two things: 1) first, Joseph’s
desire to have his father bless his two sons, and 2) second, Jacob’s adoption of the two
sons of Joseph and his giving them the blessings of the covenant. As we consider these
things, I would also like for us to consider how this presents to us a picture of how the
Lord Jesus Christ, in completing His work of redemption, also brought the blessings of
His Father’s covenant upon us.
The first thing we see is Joseph desire to have his father give his sons the
covenant blessing of Abraham. When Joseph heard that his father was sick, the first
thing he did was to go and visit him, and he took with him his two sons, Ephraim and
Manasseh. The reason he brought them was undoubtedly so that his father might bless
them before he died. Jacob was the bearer of God’s covenant. The promise God made
with Abraham had been passed on to him. It belonged to his family. One of the most
important parts of covenant life at that time was receiving a portion of these blessings at
the death of the patriarch, who in this case was Jacob. Every one of the sons would covet
the best blessings, even as both Jacob and Esau wanted them from their father Isaac. Of
course in that case, Esau wanted only the physical blessings. He didn’t really care about
the spiritual ones. Jacob, on the other hand, wanted the spiritual blessings, which is why
by God’s grace he was more fit to receive those blessings than Esau, and he actually
received them. But now Joseph also wanted these blessings, but in his case, he wanted
them mainly for his children. More than anything else, he wanted them to be at the
center of God’s covenant promise, especially the blessing of the inheritance, all of which
pointed to the coming Messiah and His kingdom, and so he brought them to his father.
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In this way, Joseph is a wonderful picture of what Jesus did for us in the Covenant
of Grace. His Father made Him a promise: If He would come into this world, be born as
a man, obey for His people, and then die for them, then the Father would raise Him up,
give Him an everlasting kingdom and the people He had obeyed and died for as an
everlasting possession. Well, we know from the Bible that Jesus fulfilled these things,
and that the Father gave to His Son the promised blessings. But we mustn’t forget who
else benefited from this covenant. The Father was glorified by His Son in saving a
people. Jesus was given the name above every name and exalted above all power and
authority. But His people were saved from their sins and given the blessings of eternal
life and an inheritance in the heavens. When Jesus did this work, He not only wanted the
blessing of His Father for Himself, but He wanted His Father’s blessing for us. This is
what Joseph wanted for His children. Needless to say, this is what we should also want
for our children. But the only way that Joseph or you or I could ever get these blessings,
is through Jesus Christ. Joseph wanted his children to have an interest in the Abrahamic
Covenant, the covenant through which the Messiah would come. We want our children
to have an interest in the New Covenant, the covenant that Messiah put into force by
dying on the cross. We can’t pass this covenant blessing on in the same way Jacob did to
his children or grandchildren, but we can pass it on through the Gospel. We must point
our children to Christ, tell them of their need of faith in Him and repentance, and then
pray that the Lord would, in His mercy, grant them this grace. I think this is especially
interesting in light of what else Joseph might have been tempted to do. He had
something else he could have desired for his children, something that neither his father
nor brothers had – he had position and power in Egypt. But he didn’t want this for them.
He didn’t want them to be a part of Egypt. Rather, he desired that they would be a part of
God’s covenant. Even Moses, when he came to years, forsook the riches of Egypt that he
might suffer with the people of God, because he was looking to the reward, a reward
which is much greater than what the world has to offer. When Jesus was confronted with
the kingdoms and riches of this world, He didn’t consider them as anything compared to
the riches of heaven, which came through obedience to His Father’s will. We need to be
careful that as we seek to pass on this inheritance to our children, that we don’t instill
within them a greater love for the world. We don’t want to raise our children to be a part
of this world, but to look to Christ, so that they might have a part in that world which is to
come.
The second thing we see in our passage is Jacob’s adoption of the two sons of
Joseph and his giving them the blessings of the covenant. When Jacob knew that Joseph
had come, he collected his strength and sat up in bed. Then he reminded Joseph how
God had appeared to him at Luz (which is the ancient name of Bethel) and blessed him,
and how He had passed onto Him the covenant He had made with Abraham – that He
would give him many children and the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession.
Jacob pointed Joseph to these things to remind him that his true inheritance was not with
the Egyptians, but with God. God had promised these blessings not only to him, but also
to his descendants. And then Jacob said something that perhaps Joseph didn’t expect.
He told him of his intention to adopt his two sons. He said, “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” (v. 5). The rest would
be called by Joseph’s name (although it appears from Scripture that Joseph didn’t have
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any more sons), but these would belong to Jacob, just like Reuben and Simeon, who were
his first and second born sons. This was perhaps Jacob’s way of showing his great love
for this son who was not only the first-born son of his dear wife Rachel, but also the son
who had save him and his whole household from destruction.
But here again we see a picture of what Jesus did for us in the Covenant of Grace.
Through what Jesus did, we too have received an adoption into the household of God.
We need to remember that at one time, we were “separate from Christ, excluded from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and
without God in the world” (Eph. 3:12). But in Christ, we were brought near. He broke
down the barrier that separated us from God – our sin – and reconciled us to God through
His own body on the cross. Because of what Jesus has done, we have received the
adoption as children, so that now we are God’s sons and daughters in Christ. Everything
that we receive from the covenant of Grace doesn’t have anything to do with what we
did, but with what Jesus did. In this case, Ephraim and Manasseh didn’t do anything to
deserve these blessings. Joseph was the one the Lord used to save Jacob’s household.
And yet, they are the ones who received them. Joseph, because of his faithfulness and
obedience through the blessing of the Lord, brought the Lord’s blessings to his children.
In the same way, Jesus, through His faithfulness and obedience to His Father’s will,
brought His Father’s blessings to us, especially the blessing of adoption into His family.
Now Jacob’s eyes were weak, and he was nearly blind because of age. And so
when Joseph brought his sons near, he had to tell his father who they were. When Joseph
told him, he said, “Bring them to me, please, that I may bless them” (v. 9). Joseph did so
and his father kissed them and embraced them. He was so overwhelmed by God’s
goodness to him that he was overcome with emotion. He said, “I never expected to see
your face, and behold, God has let me see your children as well” (v. 11). The Lord often
does much more than we expect Him to do, answering our prayers abundantly beyond all
we ask or think (Eph. 3:20). Then Joseph lined up each child so that the first-born would
be toward Jacob’s right hand, the hand of blessing, and the second would be towards his
left. But when Jacob stretched out his hands, he crossed them, laying his right hand on
the head of the second-born son, Ephraim, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head. And
then he blessed Joseph by blessing his two sons. He said, “The God before whom my
fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this
day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and may my name live
on in them, and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth” (vv. 15-16). He asked that God would give them the
blessings He had promised Abraham, that they would become a numerous people. And
notice again where these blessings came from: the God of Abraham and Isaac, the
Shepherd of Israel, “the angel who has redeemed [Jacob] from all evil” (v. 16). He was
actually referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who appeared as the angel of
the covenant. He is the One who had protected Jacob from every danger; the One Jacob
had wrestled with in order to obtain protection from his brother Esau and the blessings of
the promise (Gen 32). He is the One who brought the blessings of Abraham to His Old
Covenant people Israel, and the One who also has brought the blessings of the New
Covenant to us. He is the One who has redeemed us from our sins, from judgment, and
who protects and continues to protect us from all evil and the evil one. Jesus is the
source of these blessings. And now Jacob called upon Him to bless Joseph’s sons. This
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is something Jacob did in faith, believing the promises of God. The author to the
Hebrews writes, “By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and
worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff” (Heb. 11:21). He hadn’t yet seen the
fulfillment of the promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac and himself, but not seeing
them, he believed, and spoke about them as though they were already present. This is
what faith is: it is seeing the promises of God as they are offered to us in Christ, and on
the basis of His work, receiving them as though they are right in front of us. Jacob hadn’t
seen their fulfillment yet, but he knew God was faithful, and so he believed.
Now when Joseph saw that Jacob had put his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he
tried to correct him. He thought he had made a mistake because he couldn’t see very
well. But Jacob knew what he was doing. What he had done, he did through the Spirit of
prophecy. Manasseh would be great, but Ephraim would be greater. This is simply to
say that the Lord blesses whom He wills. He is sovereign in giving His blessing or
withholding it, according to His good pleasure, even as He has chosen now to give the
Gospel mainly to the Gentiles, while withholding it from His Old Covenant people, the
Jews. But this blessing upon both would be so great that in the future Israel would
pronounce a blessing by saying, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh” (v.
20).
Finally, Jacob tells Joseph that he is about to die, but that God would be with him
and bring him back into the land of his fathers. Again, he looks to the fulfillment of the
promise, because God is faithful, and he speaks about these things as though they are
certain, because in Christ, they are. The last thing he blesses his son with is the land he
already had in Canaan, the land he had bought from the sons of Hamor (Josh. 24:32), the
land that they apparently had taken back and Jacob had to retrieve by warfare. He
wanted Joseph’s sons to have it. When it comes to the division of the land, the lot was
never cast for this portion. It was given to Ephraim and Joseph was buried there. This
again looks forward to the fulfillment of the land promise for the people of God. In
Christ, God has promised us the new earth as our final destination, which will not be a
place where our bones will be buried, but where our resurrected bodies will dwell forever
with the Lord. The thing we need to do is to look toward the promise, the promise made
by our Father and fulfilled by our Lord Jesus Christ. As His sons and daughter through
faith in Christ, this will be our inheritance forever. This will be our blessing, and it all
comes to us through the work of Christ. Brethren, as we again remember the birth of our
Lord Jesus this year, let us remember how much He has done for us, and how thankful
we should be to Him. Amen.