Joseph was told that Jacob was ill, so he took his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Israel summoned his strength and sat up in bed and said to Joseph: “God Almighty [El Shaddai] appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.’ And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance. As for me, when I came from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).” When Joseph saw that Israel laid his right hand on Ephraim’s head, it displeased him, and he took Israel’s hand to move it to Manasseh’s head. Joseph said to Israel, “Not this way, my father; since this one is the first-born, put your right hand on his head.” Israel refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall become great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.” Israel blessed them that day, saying, “By you Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, ‘God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh.’” (vs. 20) Israel put Ephraim before Manasseh, and then he said to Joseph, “Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.” (vs. 21-22)
God is building a nation out of the weakest people on earth in Genesis: the Hebrews. Jacob’s name becomes the banner over the nation: “Israel“. The specific place that God promised to this people is the land of Canaan, but as we are seeing here they are sojourning to Egypt for a time (400 years). Jacob is an instrument in God’s hand here in his partial role of being a prophet, priest, and king. This points to Jesus Christ. If we turn from our sin and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have the perfect Prophet, Priest, and King. We no longer need men (like Jacob) to be our prophets, priests, and kings, because Jesus Christ perfectly fulfills each office. We don’t need to go to men in order to receive the covenantal blessing that God richly bestows upon His people, we need only faith alone in Jesus alone. Jesus Christ forged a better covenant through His blood. And our inheritance is beyond mere physical land on this earth, but the new heavens and the new earth that the Promised Land pointed to. We become heirs to the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:29). We have an inheritance, as God adopts men and women as sons with full inheritance rights through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:3-14).