Jacob blesses Joseph's sons

Sight lost and not given back. Sight not restored. Genesis 48:8-20.

What led up to it

Many years after deceiving his blind father, Jacob is himself old and can hardly see. He is in Egypt, reunited with his son Joseph, whom he had long believed dead. Joseph brings his two sons, Manasseh the elder and Ephraim the younger, to be blessed before Jacob dies.

What happens

Joseph places the boys so that Jacob's right hand, the hand of the greater blessing, will fall on the firstborn. Jacob crosses his arms and puts his right hand on the younger. Joseph thinks his father has made a mistake and tries to move the hand. Jacob refuses: "I know, my son, I know!"

In their shoes

Joseph assumes that because his father cannot see, he does not know what he is doing. It is a familiar moment: a sighted person reaching in to correct a blind person who has made a deliberate choice. Jacob does not explain himself at length. He simply says that he knows. The man who once took advantage of a blind father now shows that blindness and understanding are different things.

How much could he see?

Genesis says Israel's eyesight was poor because of old age and that he could hardly see. That is low vision, not total blindness. Jacob may have seen two shapes in front of him and still not known which boy was which. See what blind means here.

The place and the time

What the old books and the archaeologists can add. Each paragraph names its source.

Jacob's last years were spent in Goshen, on the eastern edge of the Nile delta, which Smith's dictionary describes as pasture land suited to a shepherd people, where the Israelites prospered and kept somewhat apart from the Egyptians. Genesis 47:27 places the family there. So the blessing in Genesis 48 is given by an old shepherd in a foreign land, far from the places where his own story had happened.

Source: Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884 edition), entry "Goshen"; Genesis 47:27.

Matthew Henry, writing around 1710, noticed that Jacob was dim-sighted in old age just as his father had been, and drew the lesson that "the eye of faith may be very clear even when the eye of the body is very much clouded." That is a preacher's observation rather than history, but it is the oldest comment on the shelf about Jacob's eyes, and it matches what the passage shows.

Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706-1721), on Genesis 48.

The passage

Genesis 48:8-20

8 When Israel saw the sons of Joseph, he asked, “Who are these?”

9 Joseph said to his father, “They are the sons God has given me in this place.” So Jacob said, “Please bring them to me, that I may bless them.”

10 Now Israel’s eyesight was poor because of old age; he could hardly see. Joseph brought his sons to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them.

11 “I never expected to see your face again,” Israel said to Joseph, “but now God has let me see your children as well.”

12 Then Joseph removed his sons from his father’s knees and bowed facedown.

13 And Joseph took both of them—with Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand—and brought them close to him.

14 But Israel stretched out his right hand and put it on the head of Ephraim, the younger; and crossing his hands, he put his left on Manasseh’s head, although Manasseh was the firstborn.

15 Then he blessed Joseph and said: “May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day,

16 the angel who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”

17 When Joseph saw that his father had placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he was displeased and took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s.

18 “Not so, my father!” Joseph said. “This one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”

19 But his father refused. “I know, my son, I know!” he said. “He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great; nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.”

20 So that day Jacob blessed them and said: “By you shall Israel pronounce this blessing: ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’” So he put Ephraim before Manasseh.