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Genesis
47:1-31 “Then
Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said, My father and my brethren, and their
flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of
Canaan; and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen. 2
And he took some of his brethren, even
five men, and presented them unto Pharaoh. 3
And Pharaoh said unto his brethren, What
is your occupation? And they said
unto Pharaoh, Thy servants are shepherds, both we, and also our
father. 4 They
said moreover unto Pharaoh, For to sojourn in the land are we come; for thy
servants have no pasture for their flocks; for the famine is sore in the
land of Canaan: now therefore, we pray
thee, let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen. 5
And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying,
Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee: 6
the land of Egypt is before thee;
in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell; in the land of
Goshen let them dwell: and if thou
knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my
cattle. 7 And
Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8
And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art
thou? 9 And
Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an
hundred and thirty years: few and evil
have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days
of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. 10
And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out
from before Pharaoh. 11 And
Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the
land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had
commanded. 12 And
Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household,
with bread, according to their families. 13
And there was no bread in all the
land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all
the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. 14
And Joseph gathered up all the money
that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn
which they bought: and Joseph brought
the money into Pharaoh’s house. 15
And when money failed in the land of
Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said,
Give us bread: for why should we die in
thy presence? for the money faileth. 16
And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I
will give you for your cattle, if money fail. 17
And they brought their cattle unto
Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in
exchange for horses, and for flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and
for the asses: and he fed them with
bread for all their cattle for that year. 18
When that year was ended, they came unto
him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my
lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there
is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: 19
wherefore shall we die before thine
eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land
will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us
seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. 20
And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt
for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine
prevailed over them: so the land became
Pharaoh’s. 21 And
as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders
of Egypt even to the other end thereof. 22
Only the land of the priests bought he
not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat
their portion which Pharaoh gave them:
wherefore they sold not their lands. 23
Then Joseph said unto the people,
Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall
sow the land. 24 And
it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part
unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for
your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. 25
And they said, Thou hast saved our
lives: let us find grace in the sight of
my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants. 26
And Joseph made it a law over the land
of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except
the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s. 27
And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt,
in the country of Goshen; and they had possessions therein, and grew, and
multiplied exceedingly. 28 And
Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred
forty and seven years. 29 And
the time drew nigh that Israel must die:
and he called his son Joseph, and said unto him, If now I have found
grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly
and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee in Egypt: 30
but I will lie with my fathers, and thou
shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said. 31
And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s
head.” Introduction [Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED544]
“Genesis chapter 47 is where we’ve come. Joseph finally has his family down in Egypt,
he has revealed himself to his brothers, Jacob his father has come down, he has
introduced his father to Pharaoh. Jacob
then in verse 7 of chapter 47 blesses Pharaoh, and we’re reminded that the
lesser is blessed of the greater, here’s the greatest, most powerful ruler on
the earth with an old beat up shepherd blessing him.
Fledgling
Nation Of Israel Established In Egypt—Joseph Gets Egypt Safely Through The
Famine
“And
Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the
years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my
life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my
fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” (verses 8-9) I love that way of looking at life, my
pilgrimage. ‘They hadn’t been easy
years either.’ Again, Abraham lived
to be 175, Isaac lived to be 180, Jacob would die 17 years after this, he would
live to be 147. Not bad, but not as old
as his fathers. “And Jacob blessed
Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh.
And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a
possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of
Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.” (verses 10-11) And we’re not sure, oh you don’t even care,
but scholars argue back and forth whether this is Rameses because Moses is
writing, and recognizes the land of Goshen as Rameses, or whether in fact Setti
the father of Rameses took his name from a Hyksos king, and they already knew
the name Rameses. Never mind, you didn’t
care. So in the land of Rameses, which
is Goshen as Pharaoh had commanded. “And
Joseph nourished his father, and his brethren, and all his father’s household,
with bread, according to their families.” (verse 12) And they’re in the 3rd year of the
famine now, remember. “And there
was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that
the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the
famine. And Joseph gathered up all the
money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the
corn which they bought: and Joseph
brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.” (verses 13-14) So it’s not coinage, but it would be silver
and gold by weight, we’re back before the 18th Dynasty, so there’s
no coinage at this point in time, but he gathers up all, that’s a remarkable
word, all of the gold and silver “found in the land of Egypt, notice, and in
the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s
house.” (verse 14) So Pharaoh no
doubt is liking Joseph more and more as time goes on. He now has all of the money of the country
and of Canaan gathered to Pharaoh. “And when money failed in the land of Egypt,
and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give
us bread: for why should we die in thy
presence? for the money faileth. And
Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money
fail.” (verses 15-16) Well they
couldn’t feed the cattle anyhow, so “And they brought their cattle unto
Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in
exchange for horses, and for flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and
for the asses: and he fed them with
bread for all their cattle for that year.” (verse 17) Now he brings to Pharaoh all of the
flocks and herds and horses of the entire land and of Canaan. “When that year was ended, they came unto him
the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord,
how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is
not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: wherefore shall we die before thine eyes,
both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will
be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us
seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt
for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine
prevailed over them: so the land became
Pharaoh’s.” (verses 18-20) Now, it’s
interesting, because in the earliest dynasties of Egypt, there is historic
record, the archaeologists find, of private ownership of land. Somewhere approaching the 18th
Dynasty and after, one of the changes they notice in the hieroglyphs and the
records, Pharaoh becomes sovereign over all of the land of Egypt, there was no
private ownership, Pharaoh then becomes the owner of all the land. No doubt that happens here, they don’t know
why, if they’d look here in Genesis they’d find out how that happened. It’s during this time of the famine when
Joseph then gathers all of their land unto Pharaoh. “And as for the people, he removed them to
cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end
thereof. Only the land of the
priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of
Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold,
I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall
sow the land.” (verses 21-23) So
this must be in the 6th year, he must know the 7th year
and the end of the famine is coming, and he provides seed for them to sow the
land, because the famine, the drought will be over, the silt will return as the
Nile rises again and he knows that they’re at the end of that 14-year period
that God had revealed to him through Pharaoh’s dream. And in verse 24 it says “And it
shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part
unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for
your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.” So this new process then begins in Egypt, as
the famine, seven years of famine are over, he says this. ‘Now Pharaoh owns your lands, he owns
everything, but this is what you’ll do.
You farm the land, instead of 10 percent you bring 20 percent every year
to Pharaoh, it will be his, you keep the 80-percent of it, four fifths of it
for yourself. You can sell it in the
market, you can feed your little ones, reseed the land in the following year,
it ends up to be a blessing to you.’ And
by the way, when government is concentrated under the Lord’s dictates, it’s to
the blessing of the people and not to the taking of advantage of the
people. Government will be concentrated
when Jesus Christ comes, the ideal form of government is monarchy. The problem is we only have humans to stick
in that position and it’s always been a disaster. But when the King of kings and Lord of lords
comes, he will be the Congress, he will be the Senate, he’ll be the House of
Representatives, and he’ll be the Supreme Court when government is concentrated
under God’s government, it is a blessing to the people. Here, as Joseph is led, this actually becomes
a blessing to the people. They don’t own
the land the way they did before, but they’ve got more than enough to live,
they can establish some wealth by selling of the percentage of the increase
that is their own, 20-percent goes to Pharaoh. “And they said,” verse 25, “Thou hast saved
our lives: let us find grace in the
sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.” They agree. “And Joseph made it a law over the land of
Egypt unto this day,” as Moses is writing, “that Pharaoh should
have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became
not Pharaoh’s.” (verse 26) And
verse 27, “And Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt, in the country of Goshen;
and they had possessions therein, and grew, and multiplied exceedingly.” And notice in verse 27, “they” so
verse 27 the word “Israel” is not speaking of Jacob, it is the first
time in the Bible that the word Israel is used of the nation, just take
note. The famine over, years of grace
and blessing continuing, “And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen
years: so the whole age of Jacob was an
hundred forty and seven years. And
the time drew nigh that Israel” Jacob “must die: and he called his son Joseph, and said unto
him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under
my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray thee in
Egypt:” (verses 28-29) at 147
that does draw near. Now he remembers
Beersheba, no doubt, where Abraham and Isaac are buried, he calls Joseph
now. He has been in Egypt for 17 years,
but Egypt had not gotten into him. He
had been there for 17 years, imagine being in Egypt, being in Atlantic City,
being in Las Vegas, being somewhere for 17 years, and all of anything you could
ever want at your disposal because your son is the most powerful ruler in the
whole area except for Pharaoh himself, and yet Jacob what he thinks about as
he’s ready to pass, is ‘Take me back, and bury me in the land of my
fathers, don’t bury me here with all the pyramids, casinos and everything.’ Interesting old man, and we’re going to
see that. Putting the hand under the
thigh is a way of making a covenant, it was relative to the generations that
would come after that. Some scholars
feel it means, ‘if you keep the covenant your generations will
be blessed, if you renegue on the covenant your generations will be cursed.’ We’re not sure of that, but certainly
it’s the making of a covenant. He says ‘Deal
kindly with me, bury me not I pray thee in Egypt.’ “but I will lie with my fathers, and thou
shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said.”
(verse 30) in Machpelah in Beersheba. “And he said, Swear unto me. And he sware unto him. And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s
head.” (verse 31) And even in Hebron
today, near Beersheba the Tomb of the Patriarchs is there today, holy to Jews,
to Muslims, Christians. You can imagine
this scene, “And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.” Imagine him
at 147, he calls for Joseph, Joseph comes, decked out in his Egyptian royalty,
his garb, this old man says ‘Don’t bury me here, Joseph, you know the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, my God, the promises, that our seed would be like
the sand, like the stars of heaven. Carry me back to Canaan, bury me there.’ Remarkable, remarkable scene. Genesis
48:1-22
“And
it came to pass after these things, that one told Joseph, Behold, thy
father is sick: and he took with
him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. 2. And one told
Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon
the bed. 3
And Jacob
said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan,
and blessed me, 4 and
said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will
make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after
thee for an everlasting possession. 5 And now thy two sons,
Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I
came unto thee into Egypt, are mine, as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be
mine. 6
And thy
issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be
called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. 7 And as for me, when I
came from Padam, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there
was but a little way to come unto Ephrath:
and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath; the same is Bethlehem.
8
And
Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these? 9 And Joseph said unto
his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto
me, and I will bless them. 10 Now the eyes of Israel were dim
for age, so that he could not see.
And he brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced
them. 11
And
Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed. 12 And Joseph brought
them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to the
earth. 13
And
Joseph 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 unto him. 14 And
Israel stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephraim’s head,
who was the younger, and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his
hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn. 15 And he blessed Joseph,
and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which
fed me all my life long unto this day, 16 the Angel which
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; and let them grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth. 17 And when Joseph saw that his
father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove
it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head. 18 And Joseph said unto
his father, Not so, my father: for this is
the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. 19 And his father
refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and
he also shall be great: but truly
his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become
a multitude of nations. [cf. Genesis
35:9-12] 20
And he
blessed them that day, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. 21 And Israel said unto
Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be
with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. 22 Moreover I have given
to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the
Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”
Chapter 48 says this, “And it came to pass after these
things,” it’s after that scene in chapter 47, and it must be near
after it, we’re not sure if it’s days, two days, “that one told Joseph,
Behold, thy father is sick: and
he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.” (verse 1) and he did the godly thing, took with him his
two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, he immediately dropped the other things he was
doing and he went, honour thy father and thy mother, interesting, he goes. Now this is an interesting scene as we enter
into it. The apostle writing the Book of
Hebrews says this “By
faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and
worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.” (Hebrews 11:21) As he’s memorialized in the New Testament,
this writer of Hebrews, I think it was Paul, you can think whoever you
want. But he doesn’t pick Jacob at
Bethel with the angels of God ascending and descending on the ladder, he
doesn’t pick Jacob wrestling at Jabbok, and God blessing him there. Of all of the scenes of his life, as he’s
characterizing men and women of faith, he says ‘This is the peak of Jacob’s
faith, this is his greatest moment, this is the place that outshines all of the
other exercises and struggles and dealings with God in his life, by faith,
pure, holy, simple, direct faith, Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph, leaning
upon the top of his staff, as he worshipped.’
And it takes us to this scene here, the most important scene of this
man in his life. Joseph is 56 years old
at this point in time. His sons are both
in their early 20s. Jacob is 147. “And one told
Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel” the Holy
Spirit giving him his name, “governed by God,” Israel “strengthened himself, and sat
upon the bed.” (verse 2) What dignity and
what power, this old 147 year old man hears Joseph is coming, and he
strengthens himself, and he pushes himself on top of his bed with his staff
we’re told. And Joseph comes in, “And Jacob said unto
Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz” at Bethel,
where he was fleeing from Esau,
“in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, Behold, I will make
thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of
people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an
everlasting possession.” (verses 3-4)
He is looking past the pyramids to the hills of Canaan, ‘I will give you this
land.’ This is an old man
who can’t see. We find out that Joseph
has Ephraim and Manasseh there, and he’s going to finally say ‘Who are those two?’
you know, he can see shadows, his eyes are shot, but he’s looking past the
pyramids in his heart to the hills of Canaan.
He said ‘God
promised me, he would make of me a great multitude,’ that’s
what he’s seeing, “and
will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting
possession.” You have to
understand, this is this old knarly shepherd, 147 years old, I’m sure he hasn’t
been to the hairdresser to get his hair done, I don’t know the last time he
shaved, his eyes are squinty like his father, he’s got the same gene pool,
Isaac’s eyes were bad, his eyes are bad.
And coming in now is Joseph, 56, and these two young princes of Egypt,
Ephraim and Manasseh, not dressed like the rest of his sons who lived in
Goshen. These young men are dressed in
Egyptian royalty, and they come in. And
Joseph is sure to bring them with him, because Joseph knows something in his
heart, of the Living God. Joseph knows
what will transpire here is more important that anything that he’ll ever
experience in Egypt in all it’s glory, and he brings these two boys in their
early 20s to this patriarch, this prophet.
And Jacob says to Joseph “And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which
were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are
mine, as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.” (verse 5) [Comment:
Jacob is officially adopting Ephraim and Manasseh as two of his own
children, no longer grandchildren, for inheritance purposes.] Now the two boys are standing there and
probably thinking ‘Dad, tell him we’re not his, what’s he talking about
here?’ He says ‘They’re mine.’ The interesting thing, of course,
that’s happening here is, he’s going to remember Rachel in a few verses
here. The years have not softened the
blow. She was the love of his life. And in his dying memories, Rachel is on his
heart. And he’d have been content to
marry her. If Laban hadn’t stuck Leah in
his sleeping bag that night, he’d have just married Rachel, and Joseph would
have been his firstborn. And now he says
to Joseph, ‘Joseph,
the double portion is going to go to you, your sons are mine, as Reuben and
Simeon are mine.’ He’s
not saying this emotionally as the boys come in, because he doesn’t know
they’re there, he’s going to say ‘Who are these two guys?’ He’s led of the Spirit now, something
wonderful is taking place. “And thy issue, which
thou begettest after them, shall be thine, and shall be called after the
name of their brethren in their inheritance.” (verse 6) ‘Other kids you have, they’re
yours.’ “And
as for me, when I came from Padam, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in
the way, when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath;
the same is Bethlehem.” (verse 7) Isn’t that interesting, final memories, as we
pass out of this world, the things that we think of, Rachel, so beautiful, so
loved, Jacob. “And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons,
and said, Who are these?” (verse 8) ‘Who are these two blurry things I see
there?’ “And Joseph said unto his father,
They are my sons, whom God hath given me in this place. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto
me, and I will bless them. Now the eyes
of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see. And he brought them near unto him; and he
kissed them, and embraced them.” (verses 9-10) So what’s going to happen here you know, is
it’s going to say Joseph places Manasseh, his oldest son, at Jacob’s right
hand, and Ephraim his younger son at Jacob’s left hand, because the right hand
would be the major blessing. It tells us
here that Jacob couldn’t see, his eyes were dim. As Jacob goes to stretch out his hands, it
says his hands were guided “wittingly” in the King James, “knowingly.” The Holy Spirit is guiding him here. And he crosses his hands, he puts his right
hand on Ephraim, who is the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh. And it’s a typical family here, Joseph says ‘No,
no, no Dad, this one’s the older,’ and he says ‘I know which one’s the
older,’ it’s a typical scene here, it’s very remarkable, very human. But there’s something divine going on that’s
remarkable. “Now the eyes of Israel were dim
for age, so that he could not see.
And he brought them near unto him;” Joseph brings
the two sons
“and he kissed them, and embraced them.
And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath shewed me also thy seed.”
(verses 10-11) Overwhelmed with
God’s grace, “And
Joseph brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his
face to the earth.” (verse 12) the ruler of Egypt bowed down before this old shepherd
father. “And Joseph 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 unto him. And Israel stretched out his right hand, and
laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left
hand upon Manasseh’s head,” look,
“guiding his hands wittingly; for Manasseh was the firstborn.” (verses
13-14) He’s completely
yielded to the LORD now, years
and years earlier, he had been the second-born and God had promised him the
blessing, Esau had been the firstborn, and he tried to steal that blessing, he
tried to do it all the wrong way. Now as
an old man, here he is, guided of the Holy Spirit, and he crosses his hands,
and he gives the blessing of the firstborn to the younger [as God intended]. “And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom
my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long
unto this day, the Angel which 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;
and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” (verses 15-16) Jacob now, remarkably, leaning upon his
staff, thinking about God’s provision, God’s protection, he says “God, the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before whom my fathers did walk” interesting, “the
God who fed me all my life long.” Isn’t
it interesting, some people say at the end of your life your whole life flashes
before your eyes. Here he is “the God
who fed me,” that’s a compound name of Jehovah-Ra, which David will say “the LORD is my Shepherd,” he says “the LORD
who shepherded me all of my life,” as he’s leaning on this staff,
worshipping. “All my life long,” think
how he’s reminiscing. It tells us back
in chapter 32, you remember, as he came back from Padam-aram, and Laban was
chasing him, and he finally made peace with Laban and set up the rock which he
called Mizpah, and then he knew Esau was coming, and God revealed to him, with
two companies of angels, and he said ‘You know, there was nothing, I passed
over this Jordan with nothing in my hand but this staff.’ That staff had been with him when he fled
from his home when Esau was chasing him.
That staff had been with him when he saw the angels ascending and
descending. That staff had been with him
for years in Padam-aram as he collected Leah and Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, and
the sons began to be born. That staff
was with him when he returned, and said ‘When I left I had nothing but this
staff.’ It was there with him the
night that he wrestled, and he had been leaning on it ever since, limping for
the rest of his life. It had been with
him when he heard Joseph was dead, was supposedly torn apart of wild
animals. It had been with him when
Rachel died, it had been with him through years of mourning, it had been with
him when he limped up to Pharaoh’s presence and saw his son again after 20
years. And now he’s leaning on that
staff and he says ‘God, who shepherded me all my life long,’ worshipping
upon that staff into the things that were attached to it. You know for you it might be a well-marked
Bible, that you see your grandmother or grandfather has, some staff, some
token, something that’s been with him for so long, a Studebaker. I don’t know, for him he’s worshipping on
that staff, all of these memories are there, and just thinking about God’s
provision. He says “God which fed me,
shepherded me, all my life long,” what a hindsight, you know hindsight is
always 20/20, “unto this day.” Now look,
“the Angel that redeemed me,” “now lettest thy servant depart in peace, for my
eyes have seen thy salvation.” He sees
redemption. This Angel, now he says,
this is not just the angel that wrestled with me, this is the Angel I’ve come
to realize that wrestles for me, not just with me. “The Angel that redeemed me, my
redemption.” First mention of redemption,
Goel here.
The
Blessing Of Becoming “A Nation & A Company Of Nations” Is Bestowed Upon
Ephraim & Manasseh
“And
he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did
walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which
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; and let them grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth.” (verses 15-16) “And when Joseph saw that his father laid his
right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held up his father’s hand, to remove
it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head.” (verse 17) He’s trying to uncross his dad’s
hands, trying to put the right hand on the right head, “And Joseph said unto his father,
Not so, my father: for this is
the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and said, I know it,
my son, I know it: he also
shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be
greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.” (verses 18-19)
‘Come on son, cut me a break, read the chapter, I’m filled
with the Holy Spirit, I know what I’m doing here.’ And of course, it is so true, that the
northern tribes became known as Ephraim, the whole northern territory became
the territory of Ephraim, Ephraim became the greatest of the tribes of the
north. Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of
Manasseh would try to stay on the other side of the Jordan, so Manasseh would
never have the prominence. But Manasseh would
be blessed. But Ephraim, certainly, as
he prophecies here, would have the blessing.
[Comment: Pastor Joe is being
shortsighted, as far as the prophetic blessings of actual nationhood that was
promised by God onto Ephraim and Manasseh, as I’ll show at the end of this
sermon.] “And he blessed them that day,
saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.” (verse
20) In the years
to come people who want to bless somebody will say ‘God make thee as Ephraim
and as Manasseh,’ “and
he set Ephraim before Manasseh.” “And
Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die:
but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your
fathers. Moreover I have given to thee” he
says to Joseph, and this is interesting, “one portion above thy brethren,
which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.”
(verses 21-22) because he had
given the double blessing to Ephraim and Manasseh. So as we look at the tribes, Joseph is rarely
mentioned, there are 12 tribes. Levi
become the Levitical priesthood tribe, Joseph is not mentioned, in his place
Ephraim and Manasseh are mentioned, and that will give us 12, and Levi is set
in a different place, Joseph is not named.
There’s slight changes sometimes in the list of the 12 depending on the
circumstance, but basically that’s what takes place here, they get a double
portion, Joseph does, but he’s not named normally as a tribe, but rather
Ephraim and Manasseh are each named as a tribe, they get a double portion. But there’s also something else here, he says
“Moreover
I have given to thee one” the Hebrew word “portion” here is “shechem,” “I have given
to thee one Shechem above thy brethren “which I took out of the hand of
the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” It seems to be prophetic as he says that,
“with my sword and my bow,” we don’t have a specific record of when he took
that away, we’re not sure. But we know
Joshua, when he divides up the land, it says this, “and the bones of Joseph which
the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt buried they in Shechem.” Not in Machpelah with Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, Joseph gets buried in Shechem.
And it’s very interesting here, it says Moreover I have given to thee one
“Shechem” above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with
my sword and with my bow.” When the Lord comes, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will get up
in Beersheba, in Hebron, in the Cave of Machpelah, Joseph’s going to stand up
in Shechem in his inheritance. Just as
it says here, remarkably, “moreover I have given to thee one shechem above thy
brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my
bow.”
Genesis
49:1-12
“And
Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may
tell you that which shall befall you in the last days. 2 Gather yourselves
together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. 3 Reuben, thou art
my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of
dignity, and the excellency of power: 4 unstable as water, thou shalt not
excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch. 5 Simeon and Levi are
brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. 6 O my soul, come not
thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou
united: for in their anger they slew a
man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. 7 Cursed be their
anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them
in Israel. 8
Judah,
thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine
enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. 9 Judah is a
lion’s welp: from the prey, my son, thou
art gone up: he stooped down, he couched
as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? 10 The sceptre shall not
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and
unto him shall the gathering of the people be. 11 Binding his foal unto
the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in
wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: 12 his eyes shall be
red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.”
The
Beginning Of Jacob’s Prophetic Blessing On His Twelve Sons
“And
Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may
tell you that which shall befall you” and it’s
interesting, it says
“in the last days.” (verse 1) that’s the first time this phrase appears in the 14
occurrences in the Old Testament where it appears. So this is no doubt eschatological,
prophetic, we may look at it a little, but it’s very practical. He’s going to prophecy, he’s filled with the
Holy Spirit. This is the pinnacle of his
life, it says. He’s blessed now the two
sons of Joseph, he’s still there leaning upon his staff, worshipping God,
filled with the Holy Spirit, what a way to make your exit. Man, if you have your choice, you know I
always thought ‘Lord, if you tarry, I don’t think you will, I’m expecting to
get Raptured,’ I don’t care what your position is, have your position, I’m
expecting to get raptured, as your faith is, so be it unto you. But I think coming to the end of your life,
living to be 147, I mean, just whatever, what a scene, at the end to be able to
prop yourself up and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and to look at your kids
and be able to prophecy over them. And
when he starts to speak here, it evidently is not his speaking tone. There’s something going on, because it seems
all of his sons are frozen as he starts to hand this out, something very
remarkable taking place here. So he
blessed Joseph and his two sons. Now he
calls for the rest of them, he knows it’s time for him to die. He’s not, there’s no fear, there’s no worry,
he doesn’t have the New Testament, he doesn’t have all the assurances we have,
he doesn’t see the blood of Christ and his redemption as clearly as you and I
do, but God has given him tremendous peace.
And the last thing he does, he’s going to speak about the future, he’s
going to speak about the last days, he’s going to speak about his sons and
their inheritance, and it is remarkable the way all of this falls out. It raises some questions, is it
predestined? [It’s prophecy, plain and
simple.] Are we elect? Does God tell out what’s going to happen to
us simply because he foreknows? Or
because he controls? Are we predestined,
does he set out our horizon ahead of time?
Now the Church [greater Body of Christ] wants to argue about this. Or is God just foreknowing? Well that’s not fair, then he knows those of
us who are going to be saved, and those who are not going to be saved. Well that shouldn’t effect you, if you’re not
saved and you’re bothered by that, get saved tonight, we’ll give you a chance. ‘Well I don’t want to do that,’ well
maybe you’re not one of the elect then. ‘Well
I don’t like that idea,’ then maybe you are one of the elect. It’s interesting, because there is a rule in
the Greek grammar called the Granville-Sharpe rule, and in Acts chapter 2 it
says that Christ was offered by the predetermined counsel and foreknowledge of
God, the Granville-Sharpe rule makes those the same thing. What it tells us is God doesn’t foreknow
benignly, he doesn’t foreknow and see terrible things and remain inactive, but God’s
predestined, his work of predestination, work of election can’t be benign or
disengaged relative to his foreknowing, that they go together. But people want to argue all about that. I like what Paul says, by the way, I’ll just
tell you, I don’t know how it got here from Jacob. But, it was a predestined moment. It says, ‘We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate,
to be conformed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren. Moreover whom he did
predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we say to these things?’
‘Well I’m a five-point Calvinist, I can prove in the
Greek,’ ‘What
shall we say to these things? If God be
for us, who can be against us?’ very simple. What shall we say to these things, I don’t
understand it all, but if God is for us, who can be against us! that’s good
news. [Now this gets into the age-old
questions about heaven and hell and the “unsaved dead” which Pastor Joe is
alluding to. The doctrine of an
everburning hell has strong Roman Catholic origins, which some parts of the
Body of Christ feel is very inaccurate.
There are various beliefs within the Body of Christ about the fate of
the “unsaved dead.” To view some of
these, see https://unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm. If the solution to all these questions about
the fairness of any judgment coming on the “unsaved dead” lies in one of those
doctrines defined in that link, it would make the whole Plan of Salvation make
perfect sense, and that man’s painful history under the influence of Satan for
6,000 years has a divine and merciful purpose to it all.] And here as Jacob lays out the history of
Israel, it’s very remarkable. And if
that’s not confusing enough, when we come to the Book of Joshua and they cast
lots to see who inherits what, all the lots fall out the way Jacob said they
would several hundred years before that in the end of Genesis. Nah! A
beautiful, beautiful chapter.
Prophecy
About Reuben In The Last Days
“And
Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may
tell you that which shall befall you” and it’s
interesting, it says
“in the last days. Gather yourselves
together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.”
(verses 1-2) He calls them the
sons of Jacob and says “listen to Israel, governed of God, your father,” very
interesting. He says, “Reuben,”
firstborn, he’s speaking filled with the Holy Spirit, he’s propped up
worshipping on his staff, I believe there’s a tone to his voice that has these
boys kind of stand there listening, “Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and
the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of
power:” and Reuben must be thinking ‘Ya! Ya, I am forgiven, I thought I blew the
blessing of the firstborn, it’s gonna come to me anyway’ you
know, they didn’t read the chapter, so he’s standing there thinking ‘Ya!’ “unstable as water,
thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then
defiledst thou it: he went up to
my couch.” (verses 3-4) Now we don’t know
if this is the first time some of his brothers are hearing this, but it all
comes into the light, Jesus says, one day, he’s standing at the judgment seat
of Jacob here. Everything’s coming out
into the open, “because
thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.” he
says in front of all his other brothers, ‘he went up and slept with my
second wife, Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, when my heart was broken and I was mourning
the death of my wife, you went up, and because of that you will never
excel.’ Warning, he
traded away the blessings of the firstborn.
We’re going to read when it comes to Judah, traded away the blessings of
the firstborn for a moment of passion, of pleasure. Now we’re under the blood of Christ and I’m
thankful for that. There’s a difference
between physical desire, which is God-given, and lust, which is feeding
something that isn’t God-given, that crosses lines. Warning?
I don’t know, I’d have to say, the first one is going to be lust, the
second one is going to be anger. It’s
interesting, that’s going to be Simeon and Levi, Jesus in the Sermon on the
Mount said ‘You’ve
heard it said of old, thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, if you’re angry
with your brother without a cause, you’ve committed murder.’ ‘Thou have heard of old, thou shalt not
commit adultery, but I say if you lust after one, you’ve already done it, it’s
already happened.’ Knowing
that lust and anger are two things that plague men, and women. What am I supposed to do?’ If you got a problem with your eye, pluck it
out, see if it solves the problem, you think you have problems with your hand,
cut it off, and you’ll find out, blind, no hands, you still get angry and lust,
because the problem is the heart, the heart of the problem is the problem of
the heart. [So what he’s saying is,
don’t pluck out your eyes or cut off your hands, solve the heart problem.] Reuben, tremendous potential, firstborn,
Jacob’s might, beginning of his strength, what he must have thought when he looked
at his first son, the excellency of dignity, the excellency of power, the firstborn,
all that should have been yours, unstable, literally, it’s boiling, the Hebrew
idea is, maybe speaking of his lust, ‘Boiling as water, thou shalt not
excel.’ Reuben never
did. Reuben, Gad, half the tribe of
Manasseh, settled short of the Promised Land [on the eastern side of the
Jordan] in the hills of Gilead, Reuben is the first tribe carried off by the
Assyrians, Reuben becomes a little section of Judah in the long run, Reuben
never excels. Jacob tells it out, he was
to be the firstborn, “thou
shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed; then defiledst
thou it: he went up to my couch.”
(verse 4b)
Prophecy
About Simeon & Levi
“Simeon
and Levi are brethren;” and you know they’re frozen now, because they’ve just
heard Dad give it to Reuben,
“Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in
their habitations. O my soul, come not
thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou
united: for in their anger they slew a
man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was
fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel:
I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” (verses 5-7) don’t
get involved in their attitude. No doubt
at least a second warning here. Anger,
bitterness, temper. Be careful of a
temper that lashes out, that does things foolishly and stupidly. Be careful of it, because it’s
destructive. And we can all be prone to
it, there’s enough Reuben in all of us, that we can be warned, there’s enough
Simeon and Levi in us that we can all be warned. And God says here [to Levi and Simeon] you’ll
be scattered throughout the nation of Israel.
And it’s interesting, Simeon never really ends up with an
inheritance. In the end of Joshua Simeon
is numbered as part of Judah, later on in Chronicles remnants of Simeon is in
Zebulun and different places. We never
find Simeon really becoming anything.
Levi on the other hand, something very interesting happens. When Moses is leading the children of Israel
into the wilderness, and they come to Horeb, Mount Sinai [which is in Saudi
Arabia, called in Arabic Jabel Musa], and Moses comes down with the Ten
Commandments and they’re worshipping the golden calf and all of this insanity
is going on, Moses said ‘Whoever
is on the LORD’s side, stand over here,’ and
the tribe of Levi stands up and takes the LORD’s
side against idolatry. And because of
that, God will again bless the tribe of Levi, and make of them the family of
the priesthood, they don’t have any inheritance in the land, but they have 48
cities scattered throughout all of the tribes, cities of refuge, and they’re
able to come up to minister to the LORD in
his Tabernacle. You know, David said ‘One thing have I
desired of the LORD, and that will I seek after,
that I might enter into the LORD’s court, that I might
worship there, that I might behold his beauty.’
David would loved to have been a Levite or a priest. So, this prophecy, very remarkable here. Their anger, remember Dinah had gotten raped
by those in Shechem, so these two boys convinced the whole town to get
circumcised, and on the third day when they were all sick with the fever,
Simeon and Levi and some of the men went in and slaughtered all of the men of
the town. And here it is, here it
is. Look, Salvation a free gift, but our
rewards, according to our service, interesting to see just the way this thing
is rolling out here.
The
Prophecy About Judah In The Last Days
Now Judah. Now when
it comes to Judah, Judah must go ‘Oh no,’ because Judah, remember he
didn’t rule his own house, he married a Canaanite woman, he got involved in
this mess, two of his sons died, and then he tried to rip off Tamar his
daughter-in-law, and ended up going in and sleeping with her because he thought
she was a prostitute, big mess there with Judah. But Judah is the one, you know, Reuben said ‘Hey, we got to go
down there Dad, we gotta go back down to Egypt and get food, we’re starving, if
we stay here we’ll die, let’s just, let us go down there, send Benjamin with
us, I promise you we’ll bring him back, if I don’t bring him back, kill my two
sons.’ Nice dad, they
must have been standing there excited.
It was Judah that said ‘If I don’t bring him back, let me die, let me be
the slave of Pharaoh.’ It
was Judah who took that place of Christ, and said ‘Let me suffer in his place, let
me be the one who bares the reproach, let me be the one who suffers for ever if
I bring him not back.’ And
Judah had stepped up to the plate, even in the face of Joseph before he knew
who he was, he said ‘You
have to send this, if you don’t send this young one back, it will kill our
father, send him back, keep me here, let me be your slave for the rest of my
life,’ and it broke Joseph’s heart, and Judah had stepped up to
the plate. And when there’s genuine
repentance, evidently there wasn’t in the lives of Reuben or Simeon or Levi,
but there was in the life of Judah. And
the blessing comes. Now it flows out of
Jacob. Jacob would rather have given, in
his carnal nature, this blessing to Joseph, but this blessing was not to go to
Joseph, it was to go to Judah, from whence Christ would come. [Comment:
The Blessing part of the inheritance, of great wealth, national wealth
and power, “a great nation and multitude of nations, possessing the gates of
their enemies,” and the promise of a kingly line, “the sceptre” blessing, were
divided at this point, in Genesis chapters 48 and Genesis 49:8-12, into two
separate blessings, as 1st Chronicles 5:1-2 shows, and will be
explained right after this sermon transcript.]
“Judah,
thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine
enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion’s welp:” he
begins to see no doubt the lion, you wouldn’t think of the Lion of the Tribe of
Judah the way we would, but he begins to see this royalty, “from the prey, my
son, thou art gone up: he stooped down,
he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?” he
sees Judah in some form royalty, and then he says remarkably, “The sceptre shall
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;
and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” (verses 8-10) He sees now of course, in Judah, the Messiah,
the Christ, “the sceptre,” of all the tribes, it’s the only one that speaks of
royalty. Of course, interesting, Moses
would be of the tribe of Levi, Joshua was from Ephraim, Gideon was from
Manasseh, Samson was from Dan, Samuel was from Ephraim, Saul was from Benjamin,
and it would be 640 years until David would come on the scene, of the tribe of
Judah, and then the line would go all the way to Christ. Around 4 to 6 AD, it was there where the
Romans took the right away from the Jews to execute the death sentence, I don’t
know if I marked it, Pilate says to the Pharisees and Sadducees, ‘You take and deal
with him and do whatever you want.’ and they say ‘It’s not lawful for
us to execute the death sentence.’
They weren’t allowed to do it, so that’s why they were bringing him to
Pilate, Jesus to Pilate to put him to death.
4 to 6 AD in that area, when Jesus was a little boy, the Romans had
taken the right away from the Jews to execute the death sentence. I believe the Talmud says the high priest, I
can’t remember his name right now, at that point went through the streets of
Jerusalem, weeping and wailing, and when asked why he was weeping, he said the
Word of God is broken, and they said ‘What do you mean?’ and he said ‘Jacob prophecied in Genesis
that the sceptre would not depart from Judah until Shiloh came,’ Shiloh
they knew was Messiah, ‘Shiloh has not come, and the sceptre has departed,
the right to exercise the death sentence as a government has been taken away
from us.’ Little did he know, in a
carpenter shop in Nazareth, there was a young Jewish boy with a plane and a
hammer in his hand, working in his step-father’s carpenter shop, “the sceptre shall not
depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;”
here we are, fulfilling Jacob’s prophecy “and unto him shall the
gathering of the people be.” (verse 10) This is a phenomenon here, right here, look
around, ‘unto
him, unto Christ shall the gathering of the people be,’
here we are. Look around, would you hang
around with these people, before you were saved? I love this church. Old people, young people, weird people, cool
people, square people, hip people, people that think they’re hip, people who
think they’re really hip, Black people, White people, Orientals, Hispanic, what
a testimony, “unto
him shall the gathering of the people be.” Jesus said ‘If I be lifted up, I
shall draw all men unto me.’ What
a testimony you are, what a great thing, look around. Look around, what a great thing, “unto him shall the
gathering of the people be.” Looking
all the way to the end, no doubt, “Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt
unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the
blood of grapes: his eyes shall be
red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.” (verses 11-12) Possibly parts of Palm Sunday [which was on a
Friday, btw], but speaking of the Millennial blessing, some of it Isaiah 63, ‘Who is
this that cometh with dyed garments from Bosra,’ you know, we
don’t know. “his eyes shall be red
with wine, and his teeth white with milk.” Speaking of
the beautiful land that would belong to Judah, the land of milk and honey, of
grazing, vineyards and so forth. Well
we’ll pick up with Zebulun next week. I
hope you’re sitting here saying ‘I can’t wait to get to Zebulun, I can’t
wait to get to Zebulun,’ you have to wait one more week, next week we’ll
pick up with Zebulun. I encourage you,
read through the rest of the chapter, the Lord willing we will finish Genesis
next Wednesday, and the Wednesday after that we’ll have communion, between
Genesis and Exodus. Be reading ahead,
some interesting questions as we come to Exodus. What is Moses’ real name? I’ve always wondered. Pharaoh’s daughter named him Mose’ which
means to draw out, because she drew him out of the Nile. [No, actually Mose’ in Egyptian means “son
of,” as in Thutmose, “son of Thut.” But
because they didn’t know who he was a son of, he was merely called Mose’ in
Egyptian, that was his Egyptian name, “Son of.”] We don’t know what his Hebrew name was. Moses, Charleton Heston, Moses. He becomes the most powerful man in
Egypt. It tells us in Acts 7 he’s the
commander in chief of the Egyptian armed forces. Why didn’t God just let him bring the
children of Israel with an armed guard right from Egypt to Canaan, eleven day
journey, instead of 40 years in the wilderness?
It seems to me that would have been way easier. ‘Moses, I raised you up, you’re in line to
be Pharaoh, the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, you’re the man, went to all this
trouble to get you here, floated you down the river, let Pharaoh’s daughter
find you, raised you up. Now take the
army, take my people back to Israel,’ don’t you wish God would do things
that way, sometimes? It’s the long way
around the barn, 40 years, 11 day journey took 40 years. So be reading ahead, some very interesting
things as we come there, but next week we will, if the Lord tarries, we’ll
finish up the Book of Genesis. If the
Lord does not tarry, we can talk to Zebulun yourself and find out
everything. Let’s have the musicians
come, we’ll sing a last song. And again,
this evening if you’re here and you don’t know Christ, you don’t know this God,
I encourage you to come up when we’re all done tonight, talk to us, we’d love
to answer your questions, we’d love to pray with you and give you an
opportunity to receive Christ, love to give you a Bible and some literature to
read. We don’t want anything from you,
we’d love to see everything for you, God did everything for you. And if it’s on your heart, come. But let’s stand, let’s pray
together…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Genesis 47:1-31,
Genesis 48:1-22 and Genesis 49:1-12, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel
of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]
related links:
Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED544
Promised
Birthright-Blessings God Gave To Abraham, Isaac & Jacob (also containing
the Sceptre Birthright-Blessing given to
Judah) We
will see that two elements of the promised birthright are lumped together and
contained in all the blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Genesis
12:1-3, “Now the LORD had
said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from
thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: and I will make of thee a great nation,
and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a
blessing: and I will bless them that
bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee:
and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis
15:18-21, “In the same day the LORD
made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from
the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the
Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the
Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Genesis
17:1-10, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD
appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am
the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and
thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.
And Abram fell on his face: and
God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with
thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called
Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I
made thee. And I will make thee
exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall
come out of thee. And I will
establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their
generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed
after thee. And I will give unto
thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the
land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession: and I
will be their God. And God said unto
Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee
in their generations. This is my
covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee;
every man child among you shall be circumcised.” This means “nations,” not mere tribes. God emphasizes this by mentioning “nations”
three separate times. Genesis
22:15-18, “And the angel of the LORD
called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I
sworn, saith the LORD,
for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine
only son: that in blessing, I
will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply
thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea
shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in
thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast
obeyed my voice.” National greatness
& kingly line leading to Christ is contained in this Blessing, plus “the
gates of your enemies” will be yours. Genesis
24:60, “And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our
sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed
possess the gate of those which hate them.” Genesis
26:1-5, “And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was
in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went
unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. And the LORD
appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I
shall tell thee of: sojourn in this
land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy
seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I
sware unto Abraham thy father; and I will make thy seed to multiply as the
stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because that Abraham
obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my
laws.” Genesis
27:26-30, “And his father Isaac said unto him [Jacob], Come near now, and kiss
me, my son. And he came near, and kissed
him: and he smelled the smell of his
raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the
smell of a field which the LORD
hath blessed: therefore God give thee
of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and
wine: let people serve thee, and nations
bow down to thee: be lord over thy
brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee,
and blessed be he that blesseth thee. And it came to pass, as soon as Isaac had
made an end of blessing Jacob, and Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the
presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting.” Promise of great
national wealth given to Jacob’s descendants.
Genesis
28:10-15, “And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and
tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of
that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to
sleep. And he dreamed, and behold a
ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and
descending on it. And, behold, the LORD
stood above it, and said, I am
the LORD
God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I
give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and
thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to
the south: and in thee and in thy seed
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will
keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again
into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which
I have spoken to thee of.” Genesis
35:9-12, “And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padam-aram,
and blessed him. And God said unto him,
Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall
not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am God
Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a
nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come
out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I
will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.” The Promise goes from “many nations” to “a
nation and a company of nations.” Notice
this slight shift on the wording of this part of the Promise within the
Blessing. Most Bible scholars miss this. Genesis
48:9-20, “And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God
hath given me in this place. And
he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them. Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so
that he could not see. And he
brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not
thought to see thy face: and, lo, God
hath shewed me also thy seed. And Joseph
brought them out from between his knees, and he bowed himself with his face to
the earth. And Joseph 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 unto him. And Israel stretched out his right hand, and
laid it upon Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left
hand upon Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands wittingly [knowingly]; for
Manasseh was the firstborn. And
he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did
walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which
redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name [Israel] be named
on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow
into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of
Ephraim, it displeased him: and he held
up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s
head. And Joseph said unto his father,
Not so, my father: for this is
the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and said, I know it,
my son, I know it: he
[Manasseh] shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother [Ephraim] shall
be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee
shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.” Genesis
49:10, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between
his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the
people be.” In the last days, right after Jesus’ 2nd
coming, the remaining 11 tribes will be regathered to Judah in the Promised
Land. We
can see “the nation and company of nations” that God promised would come out of
Jacob in Genesis 35:9-12 has now been passed on to Ephraim & Manasseh,
where Manasseh would become “that nation” and Ephraim would become that
“company of nations.” Also we can see
another identifying promise that would go to Ephraim and Manasseh is that they
would, as stated in Genesis 22:15-18 “and thy seed shall possess
the gate of his enemies…” and Genesis
24:60, “And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our
sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed
possess the gate of those which hate them.”
Gates of your enemies are military choke points. Now as we see, these are prophecies for the
future, and as Jacob gave prophecies for his 12 sons, it says they were
prophecied to come to pass “in the last days” or end-times. Also these tribes were prophecied to become
“nations” throughout the blessings given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not mere
tribes, making up the 12-tribed nation of Israel. As Israel prophecied that Ephraim would
become “a multitude of nations,” or in Genesis 35:9-12, “a company of nations,”
possessing the military choke points of their enemies, what two groups of
nations, all speaking the same language, one a “company of nations,” and the
other, “one great nation,’ fit these prophecies in modern history? What “company of nations” and “great nation”
have held these “gates of their enemies”:
The straits of Gibraltar, the
Suez Canal, Aden, the Straits of Malacca (Singapore), the English Channel, the
Falkland Islands, the Kyber Pass, Hawaii, Guam, Midway Island, Malta, the
Panama Canal, and up until World War II, the Philippines? The Hebrew for the word “British” is
“Covenant man,” Brit, to cut, Ish, man.
British means “circumcised man.”
During World War I, the Germans could always tell a British spy at the
latrine by looking down and seeing the guy next to him was circumcised, just a
tiny amusing but relevant piece of history.
1st
Chronicles 5:1-2, “Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (for he was
the firstborn; but forasmuch as he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was
given unto the sons of Joseph the son of Israel: and the genealogy is not to be reckoned after
the birthright. For Judah prevailed
above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was
Joseph’s:)” Many
Christians assume the whole birthright promises went to the Jews, the tribe of
Judah—but they’re dead wrong. What this
short but very important set of verses shows, is that the Promises were divided
into two distinct groups. The promise of
national blessings and wealth, and the promised line of kings which the Messiah
would come from, “of whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed
through,” went in two directions. The
tribe of Judah, as seen in Genesis 49:10, “The sceptre shall not depart from
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall
the gathering of the people be” would be the tribe from whom the
Messiah would come, through the line of kings that would rule over Judah, the
line of David. The promise of national
greatness and blessings, food, grain, wine, money, would end up being given by
Jacob to the two sons of Joseph, whom Jacob, Israel, adopted as his own in
Genesis 48. So two elements of the
promised birthright, which had been lumped together and contained in all the
blessings promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were divided into two separate
elements in Genesis 48 and 49, as shown in 1st Chronicles 5:1-2 and
Genesis 48 and 49. The Sabbath-keeping
Churches of God have an interesting doctrinal teaching on this, contained in this
booklet. This
knowledge is secondary to the Gospel of Salvation, and most Sunday-observing
Christians and Messianic Jewish believers do not hold to these beliefs. We’ll find out whether the identity of these
historically lost tribes of Israel is accurate or not at the Wedding Feast of
the Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7-9), and is not worth arguing over. It makes for an interesting study, that’s
all, it’s one interpretation out of many.
Survey
of Old Testament History During
the period of time encompassing the history of ancient Israel, the Israelites,
made up of the 12 tribes of Israel, inherited and lived in the land of Canaan,
which became the land of Israel, often called “the Promised Land.” Right after the reign of king Solomon the 12
tribes of Israel became divided into two distinct nations, one containing the
10 northern tribes, which became known in the Bible as “the House of Israel,”
and the southern nation became known as “the House of Judah” (which contained the
tribes of Judah, Levi and half the tribe of Benjamin). The house of Israel contained 10 tribes, two
of which were Ephraim and Manasseh, descendants of Joseph’s two sons by those
names. These 10 northern tribes making
up “the House of Israel”--including the two birthright tribes of Ephraim and
Manasseh--became historically lost after their Assyrian captivity and
deportation in 721BC. All this Old
Testament history is contained in this survey of Old Testament history
beginning at: https://www.unityinchrist.com/kings/1.html
Genesis
49, What Nations Did The 12 Tribes of Israel Become? In
Genesis 49, verse 1, Jacob says to his 12
sons “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which
shall befall you in the last days.”
What follows are 12 prophecies, given to the 12 sons of Jacob, for what
will befall them “in the last days,” i.e. in the end-times. Throughout the promises, it says nations, not
mere tribes, would come out of the offspring of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and
then also out of Ephraim and Manasseh.
These are prophecies of national, not mere tribal blessings coming on 12
sons who would first become tribes, each one a tribe, and then each would
become a nation (except for two, Simeon and Levi, because they has slaughtered
the innocent Shechemites). So we see in
Genesis 48, that Ephraim was to become a “company of nations,” and Manasseh “a
single great nation.” Judah in Bible
times became “the House of Judah,” with a Davidic kingly line governing
it. In recent times, Judah, the Jews
have become the Israelis, taking on the name of Israel, dwelling again in the
Promised Land. We can know for sure one
other tribe which became a nation, the tribe of Dan. The ancient Gaelic name for Ireland is Tuatha
de Danaan, which is Gaelic for ‘Tribe of Dan.’ So why wouldn’t Ephraim become “a company of
nations” and Manasseh “a great nation,” and not merely tribes living in the
land of Canaan? We have Reuben, Judah,
Zebulun, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph (Ephraim & Manasseh),
and Benjamin. So we have 10 tribes,
which if God’s Word is true about the Patriarch’s offspring becoming nations,
which would be nations out in the world, made up of 10 tribes that have
become “historically lost” after their Assyrian captivity and deportation in
721BC. Don’t forget, Judah has never
become historically lost. But the other
11 tribes became “historically lost,” but they’re not lost to God, he knows
exactly where they are. As Pastor Chuck
Smith, founding pastor of the Calvary Chapel Movement says in a commentary
statement in his The Word For Today Bible on Revelation 7:4-8, where
12,000 from each tribe of Israel are “sealed,” he comments “144,000. There should be no mystery as to the identity
of the 144,000. They are “all the tribes
of the children of Israel.” And to be even
more specific, the angel broke them down by tribe. It couldn’t be stated any clearer. And yet, so many groups have attempted to
identify themselves as the 144,000 who are sealed by God. It isn’t the church; it is Israel. And notice, there are no “lost tribes of
Israel.” God knows where they are.” [The
Word For Today Bible, NKJV, p. 1680, comment on Rev. 7:4-8] Historically lost, again, does not mean
“lost to God.” They’re out there, and
they are nations right now, not mere tribes.
Stephen Collins, a historian from the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God
side of the Body of Christ, has written a book where he gives some pretty good
“educated guesses” as to the identity of those 10 tribes in his book “Israel’s
Tribes Today.” (Book Four
of the Series: “The Lost Tribes of
Israel”) I know the Jews and
Messianic Jews don’t like to hear this, and most Christians don’t like to hear
it, but if God in his Word says they’re out there, they’re out there,
somewhere. The Bible gives important
prophetic clues for the two major birthright tribes, Ephraim & Manasseh,
but it remains to be seen who and where the other 8 tribes are as nations. The Jews are the only group of people, tribe,
descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that have not lost their identity as
coming from Jacob, Israel, and they have over thousands of years, held onto
that identity as coming from Israel.
They have endured great persecution for holding onto that identity,
3,000 years worth of it. For this price,
often paid in blood and martyrdom, they will be the lead tribe over the nations
of the world, under the soon-coming Messiah, as he rules the world after his 2nd
coming. As quite a few Old Testament
prophecies show, Jesus at his return will regather those “historically lost”
tribes back to the Promised Land, where their brother tribe, Judah is currently
waiting for them. Isaiah 11 shows the
tribes of Judah and Ephraim, under the returned Messiah, fighting together
against their enemies. The Bible is full
of surprises for an unsuspecting mankind.
Genesis
48, verse 16 says “the Angel which redeemed
me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name [Israel] be named on them,
and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a
multitude in the midst of the earth.” This
verse has a prophetic meaning as well.
Wherever the name “Israel” is mentioned in Old Testament Prophecy about
the future, it is referring to Ephraim & Manasseh and whoever they are
today, and not the Jews.
This one verse puts a whole different “spin” on the prophecies in the
Old Testament. Wherever they mention the
word “Israel” in a prophecy for the future, especially the “last days,” it’s a
prophecy about Ephraim & Manasseh, not Israel in general made up of the 12
tribes of Israel. A lack of proper
understanding about the true prophetic meaning of this verse has led to a major
misinterpretation of Old Testament prophecies where the name of Israel
is named. |