Genesis 48:19 But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He too will become a people, and he too will become great. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a group of nations.”
Plans often don’t turn out the way we suppose. Even in the Army, there is an understanding that as soon as the first contact with the enemy, all plans are subject to change. Plans must be flexible, adaptable, and pliable. If they are ridged, they fail to accomplish the intent of the planner.
Inflation is changing many people’s plans these days. Gas prices alone are having an impact on travel, the price of other goods and services, even on products made with petroleum products. Retirement funds, although they have gained in previous years, sunk rapidly last year into this year. For many, the golden years that were planned have turned into tarnished brass.
Joseph, the man who was used by the LORD to rescue both Egypt and Israel from a sever famine, has now come to receive a blessing from his father for his sons before his father dies. This was a common practice for one generation to pass along a blessing to another generation. It was a very important moment in the life of a family and shaped their history into the future.
But it doesn’t go as Joseph had planned. Normally the firstborn son would receive a special blessing since he occupied the culturally important place in a family. The firstborn would often get a double portion of an inheritance. He was in the place of honor in a family, and carried more responsibility than his siblings.
But as Joseph brings his sons to his own father, the father does something unexpected. His father crosses his arms and places the ‘wrong’ hand on top of the ‘wrong’ son’s head. The right hand of the father should have landed on top of the firstborn son’s head, but instead ends up on the second in line. This was not right in Joseph’s eyes. His father was making a mistake.
But as Joseph is pointing this out to his father, his father acknowledges what appears to be an error, but isn’t. Something is going on in the background that we know very little about. We only know the result. Jacob blessing Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
Now while we don’t have this custom in our culture, it was very important for them. But what I find very interesting is how often the normal structure of the blessing of descendants gets changed. The second place person ends up in the top spot.
Jacob himself is the second born son, and yet he received the blessing of the firstborn from his own father Isaac. Esau, his older brother had sold his inheritance for a bowl of soup to Jacob. And then Jacob’s mother, knowing that the LORD had promised that Jacob would be the blessed one, conspired to trick her husband into blessing Jacob rather than Esau.
We don’t know the specific reason that Jacob makes this reversal in the current text, but he does. There is no indication in this section why Ephraim gets the blessing while Manasseh gets a different blessing. Manasseh also gets a blessing. He will become a great people.
But the younger, Ephraim, he gets the special blessing of grandfather to grandson. But even more so, both Ephraim and Manasseh are adopted as sons of Jacob, each receiving a portion of his inheritance and blessing.
This is a reversal of the norm. The LORD often works outside the normal way of doing things. He isn’t bound by human conventions. He can do things in new ways. He isn’t caught up on the system.
The Arnold Journey 