The Blessing

Genesis 48:14-22

The Scripture above is the bestowing of Jacob’s blessings on Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph.  The blessing was a rite of passage, the milestone marker between childhood and being a man.  When Jan and I were in Israel at the Wailing Wall or Western Wall, we observed this blessing being passed on to several young boys who had come of age.  This thought came into my mind, how important is a fathers blessing, and who came up with the ideal of passing on a blessing from father to son?

If we go to Genesis 1:27-28, first we see the creation of man in the image of God and then we observe the blessing; “And God blessed them, And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  We also see God doing this to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:1) and to Abraham (Genesis 12:2 and Isaac in Genesis 25:11).  In fact, God is still this very day passing on His blessing, in Ephesians 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.”

So that is where we arrived at the blessing, the Hebrew father understood how important it was to bless his sons and give them the rite of passage.  The first sons always got the blessing, unless in God’s Devine scheme He chose the younger son, as He did in this case.   When Joseph saw his father’s right hand on the younger he tried to move it but Jacob said, I know what I’m doing.  Verse 19, “But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know.  He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great.  Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.”

PS:  Gray Smalley & John Trent, Ph.D. wrote “The Blessing,” a great read.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice