Scripture Daily

Context No. 1796 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 48:17-22: in context

17When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. He held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn. Put your right hand on his head.” 19His father refused, and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will be great. However, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his offspring will become a multitude of nations.” 20He blessed them that day, saying, “Israel will bless in your name, saying, ‘God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh’” He set Ephraim before Manasseh. 21Israel said to Joseph, “Behold, I am dying, but God will be with you, and bring you again to the land of your fathers. 22Moreover I have given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”

The dying Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons, but he crosses his hands, laying his right hand, the hand of the greater blessing, on the head of Ephraim, the younger, and his left on Manasseh, the firstborn. Joseph is displeased and tries to move his father's hand: not so, my father; this one is the firstborn. But Jacob refuses. I know, my son, I know, he says. Manasseh too will become great, but his younger brother will be greater still. And he deliberately sets Ephraim, the younger, before the elder.

Joseph's objection is entirely reasonable by human reckoning: Manasseh is the firstborn, and the firstborn should receive the greater blessing; that is the order, the custom, the way things are supposed to go. And Jacob, with his crossed hands, deliberately overturns that expected order, putting the younger before the elder. I know, my son, I know, he says; he is not confused, but choosing, against the human rule of precedence, to bless as God directed. This is a pattern that runs through Scripture: God's choices repeatedly overturn our expectations of order, precedence, and merit. The younger over the elder, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh, David the youngest of eight, the choosing runs against the grain of how we think things should go. God does not bind himself to our conventions of who deserves what, who should come first, who has earned precedence. His blessing is grace, not the payment of a debt owed to birth order or merit, and so it falls, again and again, where we would not have placed it. There is both humility and hope in reckoning with this. Humility, because it warns us against assuming we know how God should order his blessings, insisting, like Joseph, on our sense of who ought to come first; God's ways are not bound by our rules. And hope, because it means the blessing of God is not reserved for those with the right precedence, the firstborn, the deserving, the ones at the front of the line; God is free to bless the younger, the overlooked, the one no rule would have chosen. His grace does not follow our order. Jacob crossed his hands deliberately, and Joseph had to learn that God's blessing runs by grace, not by the human rules of who should come first.

Do I assume I know how God should order his blessings, insisting like Joseph on my sense of who ought to come first, who has earned precedence, or can I accept that God's blessing is grace, not bound by human rules of birth order or merit, free to land on the younger and the overlooked, wherever he chooses?

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