Глава 48

Jacob adopts sons Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh Gen.48:1–2. After this they said to Joseph, Behold, your father is sick. And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim [and went to Jacob]. They told Jacob and said, “Behold, your son Joseph is coming to you.” Israel gathered his strength and sat up on his bed. The story of Jacob is now, in fact, over and he appears in ch. 48 and 49 only as a testator, transferring to his offspring all theocratic benefits, and as a prophet about his fate. The story about Jacob blessing his sons is significantly reminiscent of a similar story in Genesis. 27:1–41 about Isaac’s blessing of Jacob and Esau, also concluding indications of the interaction of two factors - the natural inclination and love of the father for his children and divine inspiration - and the latter’s overcoming of the first. When Joseph, called to Jacob’s bedside, arrived to him with his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh (each of them was more than 20 years old at that time, cf. Gen. 41:50), the dying Jacob, “wishing to honor Joseph’s royal dignity” (Rashi), or, perhaps, encouraged by the joy of meeting with his beloved son, gets up and sits down, as if to express the importance of the moment. Gen.48:3–4. And Jacob said to Joseph: God Almighty appeared to me in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and he said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and make of you many nations, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession. Intending to equalize the two sons of Joseph with his own sons, to make them full-fledged patriarchs, Jacob, first of all, indicates the basis or source of those rights and benefits that he plans to pass on to his descendants - in those great promises that he received in Bethel-Luz from “God Almighty” (in Hebrew - El-Shaddai, Gen. 35:11-12; cf. Gen. 28:13–15); He especially emphasizes the promise of the reproduction of his offspring, since he has in mind the adoption of grandchildren. Gen.48:5–6. And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt, before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, like Reuben and Simeon, will be mine; and your children who are born of you after them will be yours; they will be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. Jacob deliberately limits this adoption to Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, adding that if Joseph had more children, they would no longer form a separate tribe, but would be numbered among the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph, apparently, had no other sons, Gen. 50:23; cf. Num. 26:28–37). By accepting Joseph's two sons here as his sons and giving them a share "in the banners, in the dedication of the altar, in the division of the promised land" (Abarbanel), Jacob thereby recognizes Joseph's right of birthright with his double inheritance (Deut. 21:15–17), - taken from Reuben for his crime (Gen. 49:4) and transferred to Joseph not only due to his exceptional position in Egypt, as the nourisher and “prince” of his brothers (cf. Gen. 49:26), not only as the beloved son and firstborn of his beloved wife, but also, without a doubt, according to the special vision of God. The kingdom in the descendants of Jacob was given to Judah, and the priesthood to Levi (Gen. 49:8-10), but with his special blessing over Ephraim (vv. 14, 20) it was predicted to him that kings would come from his family. Gen.48:7. When I was coming from Mesopotamia, Rachel [your mother] died in the land of Canaan, on the road, not reaching Ephrath, and I buried her there on the road to Ephrath, which is now Bethlehem. In the last hours of his life, Jacob remembers his beloved wife Rachel, Joseph’s mother: she was the constant object of Jacob’s love and, at the same time, the source of many sorrows, starting from the time of his marriage to her and ending with her premature death and the fate of her first-born, Joseph. For the sake of the memory of Rachel, for the glorification of her name, Jacob, through the adoption of grandchildren, seems to increase the number of sons of his beloved wife. Gen.48:8–10. And Israel saw the sons of Joseph and said, Who are these? And Joseph said to his father, These are my sons whom God has given me here. [Jacob] said: Bring them to me, and I will bless them. The eyes of Israel were dull with age; he could not see clearly. Joseph brought them to him, and he kissed them and embraced them. Jacob, who had already seen poorly (v. 10), had not hitherto noticed the presence with him, in addition to Joseph, of Ephraim and Manasseh, and only now he saw them and inquired about them, then expressed a desire to bless them, kissing them fatherly in advance. Gen.48:11. And Israel said to Joseph, I did not hope to see your face; but behold, God has shown me your children also. Jacob expresses delight and tenderness: he did not expect to see his son, but God granted him to see his grandchildren. Gen.48:12. And Joseph brought them away from his knees and bowed down to him with his face to the ground. Joseph places both sons in a position befitting a solemn and significant act of blessing; Probably all three worship Jacob (Heb. and Vulg.: bowed, i.e. Joseph; LXX, glor.: bowed), since it is incredible that Ephraim and Manasseh remained completely passive to their upcoming blessing. Gen.48:13–14. And Joseph took both [his sons], Ephraim in his right hand against Israel's left, and Manasseh in his left against Israel's right, and brought them to him. But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on the head of Ephraim, although he was the youngest, and his left hand on the head of Manasseh. He placed his hands this way with intention, even though Manasseh was the firstborn. What Jacob had said and done hitherto did not go beyond the boundaries of the usual order of things in the relations of parents to children. Joseph, adhering to this order, places the eldest son on the right side of the patriarch, and the youngest on the left. But the patriarch, who once himself received a preferential blessing over his older brother - not without a deliberate divine instruction to his father, now, by divine inspiration, also gives preference to the younger Ephraim over the older Manasseh: deliberately, with full consciousness (Heb. sikkel) he transferred his right hand to the younger (the right hand was preferred to the left among the Jews, 1 Kings 2:19, etc.) and the left to the eldest grandson his. Gen.48:15–16. And he blessed Joseph and said: God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has shepherded me from the time that I existed until this day, May the angel who delivers me from all evil bless these youths; May my name and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac be called upon them, and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. The laying on of hands here for the first time in the Bible is presented as a sign of blessing and the imparting of grace-filled gifts; in this meaning, it was then always preserved in the Old Testament church (Numbers 8:10, 27:18–23) and from there passed on to the New Testament church (Matthew 19:13; Acts 6:6, 13:11). The blessing of Jacob extends both to Joseph himself (Hebrew text and Russian translation), and to his children, who both in the blessing of Jacob (Gen. 49:22–26) and in the blessing of Moses (Deut. 33:13–17) are united under the name of Joseph. The very form of the blessing is extremely significant, since it expresses the pure beliefs and sublime worldview of the biblical patriarch, ending the patriarchal period. Here, first of all, is a firm faith in God, as the God of the covenant, Who demanded from the patriarchs a holy and godly life and Whom they pleased with such a life (cf. Gen. 17:1), and Jacob, with humility, points out examples of pleasing God only in his fathers, and not in himself; then, an equally firm and bright faith in the providence of God, which unites and resolves all moments of human life (Gen. 37:35, 43:14), even the most unfavorable ones, into a favorable whole. More often, finally, faith in the Angel-Deliverer from all evils, in the Angel-God (since he is compared with God), who once fought with Jacob (Gen. 32:24). This threefold prayerful invocation of God with a single “may he bless” expresses the patriarch’s thought about the unity of divine actions in the world, and then can predict the mystery of the trinity. In the immediate sense, each appeal contained a corresponding prayerful wish for spiritual and physical blessings, which, then, are all united in the words: “may my name and the name of my fathers be called upon them.” Jacob favors Ephraim Gen.48:17–18. And Joseph saw that his father had laid his right hand on Ephraim's head; and it was unfortunate for him. And he took his father's hand to transfer it from the head of Ephraim to the head of Manasseh, And Joseph said to his father: Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head. Joseph, supposing a mistake on the part of his father in the elevation of his youngest grandson, tries to correct it in relation to the natural order of primogeniture. Gen.48:19. But his father did not agree and said: I know, my son, I know; and from him shall come a nation, and he shall be great; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and from his seed will come a numerous nation. But Jacob answers him that his action was completely conscious, in accordance with the divine definition (according to the Midrash, Jacob said: “I know what disasters came from my preference for Joseph, they can come now, but God’s will be done!”). For a long time, the Manasseh tribe was not inferior to Ephraim either in the number of its members or in power, and one of all the tribes could be divided into 2 halves, West Jordan and East Jordan, each of which was very powerful. Only after Ephraim the tribe acquired hegemony in the middle (by geographical location) group of the tribes of Israel. From him came the glorious leader of Israel Joshua, and from Manasseh came Gideon. Gen.48:20. And he blessed them that day, saying, Through thee shall Israel bless, saying, God do unto thee as unto Ephraim and Manasseh. And he placed Ephraim above Manasseh. The solemn acceptance of Joseph's sons into the family of Patriarch Jacob was probably necessary in view of possible disputes between his sons after his death about the fact that Joseph's sons did not belong to the family of promise, as they were born to him from the daughter of an Egyptian priest. Anticipating this possibility, Jacob gives Ephraim and Manasseh a deliberately solemn blessing and even promises them that, due to the actual benefits that his blessing will bring down on them, it will become a model in Israel for blessings by fathers on their children. Without a doubt, subsequent generations on similar occasions always turned their thoughts to this blessing of Jacob. Jacob's prophecy about the return of his descendants to the land of their fathers Gen.48:21–22. And Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I am dying; and God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers; I give you, especially before your brothers, one plot, which I took from the hands of the Amorites with my sword and my bow. The power of blessing for Joseph and his sons, according to Jacob, will be expressed in the fact that they will not be absorbed by the life or culture of Egypt, but, along with the other descendants of Jacob, will be returned by God to the land of promise. In this latter, Jacob grants ownership of a certain plot (Heb.: schekem achad, Vulg:. partem unam), probably near Shechem (LXX: Σύχεμ), where Jacob bought a field from Hamor (Gen. 33:19) and where, after the Jews entered Canaan, Joseph was buried (Josh. 24:32; cf. Gen. 50:5). The acquisition of this site “from the hands of the Amorites with the sword and bow” of Jacob is a fact unknown from the Bible, but marked by tradition (one cannot, on the contrary, see here with Rosenmüller and others an indication of the Shechem massacre, strictly condemned by Jacob in his time, and condemned by him on his deathbed, Gen. 34:30, 49:5–6). You might be interested in: