One of Jacob’s sons was Joseph; it was he whom his brothers sold into captivity in Egypt where Joseph prospered and was able later to use his position to provide refuge to the family from which he had been separated. Before Jacob pronounced the blessings on his twelve sons, as recounted in chapter 49 of Genesis and mentioned in the previous post, Joseph, with his own sons Ephraim and Mannaseh, visited Jacob. The event is described in chapter 48 of Genesis. Verses 3 to 6:
And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me,
And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.
And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; ….
And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance.
By that action, Jacob (now Israel) raised Joseph’s two sons to equal rank with Jacob’s other sons, as emphasised by him when he said to Joseph (verse 22)
Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren
After having the two boys brought to him, Jacob placed his right hand on the head of Ephraim, the younger son and his left hand on the head of Manasseh, the first-born. He said (verse 16):
The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
Thinking he erred, Joseph tried to correct him but Israel made it clear his action was deliberate (verses 18-19):
And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.
And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
Later, when speaking to his sons, as mentioned in the previous post, Israel conferred the inheritance of royalty on Judah but passed the rest of his birthright to Joseph (verses 22, 24-26):
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: …
But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob;
… Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.
Thus, the birthright was divided. Judah was to rule (verse 8):
Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee.
Although the right of bountiful blessings was bestowed on Joseph and, through him, on his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph was to bow down before Judah. It should be noted that Israel had ten other sons and Israel made certain prophecies concerning them. But the birthright was divided between Judah and Joseph and that division was a prelude to another of great significance in Israel’s history.
