Context No. 4018 of 4322 · Genesis

Genesis 48:8-16: in context

8Israel saw Joseph’s sons, and said, “Who are these?” 9Joseph said to his father, “They are my sons, whom God has given me here.” He said, “Please bring them to me, and I will bless them.” 10Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he couldn’t see well. Joseph brought them near to him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. 11Israel said to Joseph, “I didn’t think I would see your face, and behold, God has let me see your offspring also.” 12Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the earth. 13Joseph took them both, Ephraim in his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh in his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near to him. 14Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. 15He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, 16the angel who has 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. Let them grow into a multitude upon the earth.”

The aged Jacob, near death, blesses Joseph's two sons, and in doing so he gives one of the beautiful confessions of faith in Genesis. He describes God in three ways drawn from his own long life: the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked; the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day; and the angel who has redeemed me from all evil.

Looking back over a long and often difficult life, full of striving, sorrow, and struggle, Jacob sums up what God had been to him. God had shepherded him, guiding, feeding, and caring for him through all his years, and God had redeemed him, delivering him from every evil. It is the testimony of a man who has learned, over a lifetime, who God is. There is something to aspire to in Jacob's confession. Despite all the trouble and failure of his life, much of it his own doing, Jacob could look back and see the hand of a faithful God who had shepherded and redeemed him the whole way through. May we come, like Jacob, to the end of our days able to say the same.

Looking back over my life, can I make Jacob's confession my own, that God has been my shepherd all my life long and has redeemed me from evil, and am I living so as to know him more truly as both?

Sources

Genesis 48:15: "The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day."
Genesis 48:16: "The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."
Psalm 23:1: "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall lack nothing."