40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 40 Minutes In The Old Testament: Episode 59

Episode Date: October 13, 2016

Chad and Daniel discuss Jacob on his deathbed. The oath he makes Joseph swear to him and a radical twist of blessing and adoption. Check it out! 

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i am daniel emery price and i'm joined by chad bird chad how you doing i'm great i'm great how about you dan i'm good man ready to rock and roll i'm ready i am ready man where where are we at we are just about at the end of well we're actually just about the end of genesis but specifically we're just about at the end of chapter at chapter 47 uh now i'm gonna say this so that i have obligated myself to do this i'm i'm i'm binding myself to this promise all right so today in this 40 minutes we're going to cover what's left of 47 and 48 and then we're going to cover 49 and 50 on uh on the next on the next 40 minutes you know what that means that's audacious i know i'm it's it's a bold assertion

but I'm going to, I'm going to stick with it. So we're going to cover, uh, what's left of 47 and 48 this episode, 49 and 50 the next episode. And you know what that means? That means we're moving on to Exodus. All right. Yeah. And I'll tell you, if you think, if you think Genesis has been, uh, has been an awesome story to, to sink ourselves into, uh, just, just wait until we get to Exodus. I mean,

They talk about a theological, Christological goldmine. That's what Exodus is. So I can't wait to dive into all the good stuff there. It also ends us in a nice round number. This is episode 59. That will be episode 60. And here we go, 60 episodes of Genesis. Ah, look at there, 60.

60 episodes of Genesis. Can't beat that. No. All right. well then we better get we better get started on this if we're gonna if we're gonna make you a man of your word yeah i guess so i guess we better we better get rolling uh just a very very brief recap uh the first part of chapter 47 is when joseph brings his his brothers in front of pharaoh and uh then he brings his his his elderly father in front of pharaoh you'll remember that jacob

blesses pharaoh prior to the conversation and after the conversation and kind of summarizes his life as a life of few and unpleasant years at that point he was 130 years old and he and all of his clan had just arrived in the land of egypt settled in the region of goshen and there they acquired some property and they waited for the famine and began to sink roots into the soil of a foreign land so that's and then we have a brief brief summary of of how joseph uh through various kinds of taxation brought more and more of egypt under pharaoh's control so that's kind of where we left off last time. And we're going to pick up here with verse 27 of chapter 47. And it's kind of an interesting way that you have in verse 27, almost a preview of the same

kind of language that we're going to hear when we get to the book of Exodus in about three weeks, because it says, Israel lived in the land of Egypt in Goshen, and they acquired property in it, and were fruitful, and became very numerous. Now that idea of being fruitful and numerous not only harkens back to the first couple chapters of Genesis and the command of God for Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, so it looks backwards, but it also looks forward because as we're going to read in the opening verses of chapter 1 in Exodus, it says the sons of israel were fruitful and increased greatly and multiplied and became exceedingly mighty so that the land was filled with them so you kind of have this verse in chapter 47 looking back to

creation and looking forward to how the generations to come are going to be multiplying even more in the land of in the land of egypt which is in fulfillment of god's promise that uh they would do well, that God would do well for them, even in this, even in this foreign land. So they have, they have land, they have a lot of kids. And we're told after that, that Jacob lived in the land of Egypt 17 years. And so he's, he's going to, he's going to reach his 147th year. Now, I think I pointed this out in the last episode, but I'll, I'll, I'll point out again, just as a kind of a nice reminder of the way that God works. So Jacob had Joseph with him the first 17 years of Joseph's life. And then he went through that long, dark, troubling period

when he thought his son was dead. Then finally, he has him back. And he arrives in Egypt when he's 130. He dies when he's 147. So he also has Joseph with him for the last 17 years of his life. So kind of a nice balance there between blessing and then a time of suffering and deprivation and grief, followed then by 17 years of what we assume was joy, having his son close to him, close to him once more. The last couple of chapters, the end of this chapter, and then the following two chapters, 48 and 49, really all take place around the deathbed, if you will, of Jacob. So he's 147 years old. He's very near death, but he's got a lot to say. In fact, you could almost say he says more in these last couple chapters than he does

in all the previous chapters of his story. And he's, first of all, here at the end of 47, going to give instructions to Joseph about what to do with his body after he dies. And then in the next chapter, he's going to bestow a blessing upon Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And then in chapter 49, he's going to gather together all of his sons, and he's going to more or less forecast their future for them. He's going to pronounce a blessing or a semi-blessing,

or in some cases, the opposite of a blessing upon his 12 sons. So you can kind of picture this as an expanding circle of people that Jacob talks to in these chapters. First of all, he's going to talk just to Joseph. And then in the next chapter, he's going to talk to Joseph and Manasseh and Ephraim. and then in chapter 49, he's going to talk to all of his sons at once. So let's first of all quickly cover what he says just to Joseph. So he's about to die, and he calls Joseph to him, says that he wants Joseph to deal with him in kindness and faithfulness by not burying him in Egypt,

And not only does he make Joseph promise, but we also have this kind of awkward physicality to the promise as well. You may remember way back when Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son, that he made that servant promise. And when he when he made the servant promise, he had him touch his thigh, which, as we talked about, was a euphemism for his for his genitals. Kind of a very strange, strange part of their culture. But that's what they did. Well, here we kind of have the same thing happening again. So Jacob is not going to make Joseph swear, but he says, put your hand under my thigh. Now, that could be, I guess, literally a thigh or it could be a euphemism once more. But either way, we have Joseph not only promising in his words, but as it were, adding the touch to that as well.

So he puts his hand on his father and his father continues by saying, when I lie down with my fathers, I want you to carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place. And Joseph responds by saying, I will do as you've said. And then his dad makes him swear. He says, swear to me. And so he swore to him. Now, we might ask, what's the big deal? I mean, who cares if Jacob is buried in Egypt or if he was buried in the Holy Land? Or, you know, what difference does it make?

Well, it made a huge deal of difference to the people of the Old Testament, in particular to the Israelites, because the only ground that God had sanctified for them, made holy for them, and that he had promised to give to them and to their descendants after them was, of course, the Holy Land. and the land so the land itself was emblematic of the mercy of god it was like it was almost like the the land was infused with the presence with the gracious presence of the god who had redeemed them who had called them who had chosen them as his own so israel or jacob wants to be buried there because that's that's his home that's uh not just his home but that's the place that god has chosen for him so his very his very burial spot is to be an indication of god's chosen land so his body rests awaiting the eventual resurrection where god had chosen to to give the gift of his grace and mercy to to his people i wonder i wonder if this so just a move

just some move that you make when you want someone to make a promise and you don't want them to forget this promise pretty unforgettable yes so it's maybe if somebody uh if you make someone promise in this way and then they try to tell you oh dude i forgot you're like uh you forgot when i made you touch my stuff and swear an oath to me like i don't think you forgot that no one forgets that when i was when i was a super old man and i made you and i made that when i went down like that like you know nobody forgets that yeah you know there are certain things that you cannot unremember and that's one of them that's it this has never happened to me but if it did i guarantee you i would i would never uh no matter how old and feeble and forgetful i

be i became i would not forget that no i'm positive this has never happened to me that's the whole point like i'm apt like i don't think that's ever happened to me no i know for sure that hasn't happened to me that's the whole point because something like this is seared in your memory this goes well beyond a handshake yes yes this is amped up yeah so uh i suppose this was this was jacob's way of making sure this was the patriarchal way you know of making sure that the descendants didn't forget their promises but you know there are there are certain as much as i love the old testament and everybody who's listening to this uh certainly knows that there are certain things about the old testament that i'm glad we're not uh are not still practiced

among us this being one of them so uh anyway that's the way the chapter winds up uh but but jacob it's not as if jacob then breathes his last and dies after having joseph promise to take his body back into the holy land now he's not done yet uh he's still got a lot to say so why don't we uh why don't we move on that's the end of chapter 47 now we're at the chapter beginning of chapter 48 and the audience around jacob this old dying man is going to increase now we're going to have not only his son joseph but we're going to have joseph's two sons manasseh Ephraim. Now, everybody will have to kind of go back in their memory a few chapters to remember about Manasseh and Ephraim. When Joseph got out of prison and was exalted to the right hand of

Pharaoh, one of the things that Pharaoh did for him was he gave him a wife. She was the daughter of one of the egyptian priests named pot of not uh not potiphar but potiphar so this priest had a daughter named uh oznath and she became the wife of joseph and they together had two sons and the first born and this is this is significant the order matters the first born was manasseh and then the second born was Ephraim. So, we have to keep that in mind, because the order of the birth is what this chapter is all about. So, Joseph and his wife had two sons, and if they had any more after these, then we're not told about that. As far as we know, they only had these two sons. So, here's what happens. It says after these things, so after this little

conversation between Joseph and his dad. Joseph found out that his father was sick. And a parenthesis here, by the way, I always like to note these things. This is the first time in the Old Testament that we have a mention of someone becoming ill. One of these days, I like to do a study about the first time things were mentioned in the Bible, because we have a lot of that in the book of Genesis. And this is the first time we have mentioned of illness or sickness. That's not to say, of course, that it didn't exist, but this is the first mention of that. So Jacob is sick. And so Joseph goes to visit him. Evidently, they were in the same area, but they weren't living under the same roof. So Jacob at his place, Joseph probably was back,

He had his own residence, palace-type structure, wherever he lived. So Joseph goes to visit his ailing father, but he doesn't go alone. He takes his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him. They tell Jacob, look, your son Joseph has come to you. And Jacob, who's called Israel in this portion of the story, Israel is not only sick, but he's bed-bound. He's he's so ill that he's he's stuck in bed. In fact, we're told in the previous section we just looked at that even then when he talked to Joseph, he was in bed.

So he's he's in bad shape. I mean, he's he's right near his death. And so he's he's bed bound at this point. When Jacob hears that his son has come, he's he he gathers all the strength that he can muster. and he sits up in bed so that he can talk to his son because he has something very important that he's about to say and to do for Joseph. So Joseph comes in, Jacob's sitting up in his bed, and first of all, he has a little conversation about his past. This is actually very fitting.

he's at the end of his life and he wants to recollect for Joseph what God has done for him throughout his 147 years so he he references something that happened to him in the past he says God Almighty which in the Hebrew is El Shaddai God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me and here's what he said God said behold I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession. So you kind of got a couple things going on here. You have God promising Jacob not only is he going to have a lot of descendants, but he's also going to have the land, which is, of course, the two main blessings that we have

promised Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob. You get the land and you got the blessing of numerous offspring. So, you got kids and you got land. So, God made this promise to Jacob, but then he's not finished. He's referenced this promise that God made to him. and now we have a a very a very shocking unexpected adoption that takes place so he he says to joseph when i was back in the holy land before i came to egypt god made this promise to me saying that i was going to have a land i was going to have offspring and then he switches after he quotes god he says and now and now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt, before I came in Egypt, those two sons are mine.

Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. Now, I don't know if Joseph had any inkling of what was about to take place. To our knowledge, he did not. I mean, all he knew was dad was sick, dad was old, and it was time to go see him. And so he brought his two sons along. But in the middle of this conversation that Jacob has with Joseph, he reveals that there's going to be a change of parentage, if you will. He is going to adopt Joseph's two sons as his own. So, the grandfather adopting the grandsons. But not only is he going to, this isn't just kind of a, hey, I'm sort of claiming these as mine, because there's a whole lot more involved with this than simply that. If they are Jacob's sons, then they are co-heirs

with the other sons of Jacob. So they are being elevated to being the recipients of the blessing that Jacob is going to give to his son. So they are no longer grandsons. They are now sons. And so they are equal with Dan and with Asher and with Naphtali

and with Simeon and with Levi and with all the other sons of Jacob. In fact, as we'll see as the story goes on, what's really happening here is that Ephraim and Manasseh are taking together, are taking the place of the firstborn son of Jacob. Now, you remember, and I might be getting a little bit ahead of myself, so I might have to circle back here, but I'll go ahead and say it now. You remember that in the natural order, Reuben was Jacob's firstborn, and then you had Simeon, and then you had Levi, and then finally you had Judah as the fourth one. Now, Reuben is the one who was disqualified from inheriting the blessing of the firstborn because he defiled his father's bed, as it says. He slept with one of the co-wives of his dad and thus disqualified himself. Simeon and Levi were next, the second and third, and they disqualified themselves when they attacked the city of Shechem after the rape of their sister and slaughtered all the male inhabitants of Shechem, which we've talked about.

So the first three, Reuben and Simeon and Levi, are out. So what's happening here is that instead of the blessing of the firstborn falling upon Reuben or falling upon Simeon or upon Levi, the blessing of the firstborn is actually going to pass to Joseph in the person of his two sons. Now, I want to make sure that this is clear. So the firstborn is actually going to be two people, if you will. It's Joseph, but represented in his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh so there's it's really an amazing twist that's taking place here because Jacob is is disregarding the order of the birth and instead he's he's choosing Joseph and he's kind of splitting up or or or uh pulling together the blessing of the firstborn and he's

giving it to these these two sons of two sons of Joseph it seems as though part of this is there's some legitimizing of joseph's children who are obviously not full hebrew as it were so it wasn't as though joseph went and found you know you we've seen over and over again you know you gotta you know go find a wife uh from from our people you know so you gotta you gotta go down and hang out with laban and go get rachel and leah and all this kind of all this kind of stuff right right and they're sort of they're so even before you know israel's sort of a nation they're still sort of your people you know there's still the people that are like you and the people that aren't exactly like you and uh and down in egypt those people would qualify as

not exactly like you which is exactly what joseph marries into and uh and so you have to wonder if some of this also i mean besides the other things that we'll get into but uh some of this also is you sort of have the patriarch here sort of legitimizing uh joseph's family uh lest there be any uh talk of well you know joseph's got you know kind of it's kind of jacked up i mean he's got kind of this like half-breed family going on and and that of course serves as like this wonderful picture of of the grafting in of gentiles and that sort of thing as well adoption into into the chosen family of god you know that's a great point it's actually had i'd not even consider that but i think it's a it's a great insight because as you say there's a great there's

a long history here of uh making sure that the wives of the patriarch are from the family yeah and we have we have a huge change here because well well first of all joseph didn't joseph was the only hebrew down there uh at least the only one we know about so there wasn't you know a bunch of hebrew women that could have been uh chosen for his wife so and not only is his wife from egypt but she is i mean she's right from a family of of the religious the priesthood of egypt so i can well imagine that there would have been some talk yeah well yeah look at joseph's wife right it's not unless she egyptian but her dad is a is a egyptian priest so this this completely uh not only legitimizes these sons of joseph as full hebrew fully part of the family fully part

of the blessing but it even elevates them to a higher status than their their uncles were so they are they are now uh given by virtue of the patriarch's blessing the the affirmation of full status in in the in the chosen family right yeah because this isn't just as simple as hey you need to treat them like they're part of our family the way that like i've won i treat people that marry into my family or you treat people that marry your family they're brought into the covenant I mean that's Legitimizing them is saying That promise that was made to

Abraham Applies to them Which is a pretty big deal Yeah it removes all doubt And invests them With this honor that Before this point We never would have dreamed was going to happen

By the way If anyone is listening to this And wants to read a little bit more about how Joseph becomes the one in his sons who receives the firstborn you just take a look at first chronicles chapter five verses one and two where it goes over that it says that the birthright was given to the sons of joseph uh so that's instead of reuben or instead of one of the other sons was given to given to the sons of joseph that's first chronicles five one and two so the grandfather

the patriarch Jacob has now adopted the sons of Joseph and not only has he adopted them he's given them a blessing and not only has given them a blessing but he has elevated them to first born status so he says that just as Reuben and Simeon are my sons now Ephraim and Manasseh are my sons as well. And then he goes on to say, but you know what, if you have more children after these, and like I said earlier, we have no biblical evidence that Joseph did, but he said, if you have any offspring after this, they'll be yours. So they're legally going to be Joseph's, but they'd simply be called by the names of their brothers. So they would receive the inheritance of their brothers, but they would legally remain Joseph's children. So the only adoption that's

taking place is of these first two, Manasseh and Ephraim. And then he has a brief recollection of Joseph's mother, of Rachel. He says that, you know, when he came from his exile to Paddan Aram, that Rachel died to his sorrow in the land of Canaan on the journey, and he buried her there. Now, this seventh verse kind of seems out of place. This kind of doesn't really fit the narrative, but I think what's going on here is that the reason that Jacob recollects the death of his first wife is because in some ways, what he's just done in the adoption of Joseph's son is an honor to her. remember that she had she had trouble having kids she finally had joseph and then she had a second

son benjamin but she died in in childbirth with benjamin so she wanted more children but not only did she have trouble having the first two but of course she she died having her second one and i suspect that one of the things that jacob is doing here is honoring them her memory By actually kind of giving her two more sons, if you will, he's by adopting Ephraim and Manasseh, he's kind of adding two more to Rachel's progeny. So you could, because of this adoption, you could really say that Rachel has four sons. She had two in her lifetime. She had Joseph and Benjamin. And then she had two kind of granted to her in memory after her death, Manasseh and Ephraim.

So I think that's probably why he recalls her death at this point in the conversation. So that's the first seven verses. Now we kind of have a switch here that goes on. We become much more kind of, I guess you'd say formal in the conversation that follows. Because we're about to have the actual blessing pronounced upon these two sons. and there's another surprise awaiting us here too. So kind of picture the scene here. You've got Jacob in bed. He's, he's ill. You've got Joseph standing there with his, with his two sons and Israel says, he saw Joseph's sons and he says, who are these? So this is kind of formal,

you know, well, he knows who they are, but who are these? He says, and Joseph responds, They are my sons whom God has given me here, meaning in Egypt. So Jacob says, well, bring them over here that I may bless them. I mean, this is kind of like you have this formality still in church today. For instance, in my church, when parents bring up a child to be baptized, part of the liturgy, the formal words that are said there is the pastor will say, you know uh what is this child to be named well the pastor already knows what the child is to be named but it's just kind of part of the formality of the service so the parents will say well his

name is john or tom or her name is cindy or whatever and then the liturgy will continue that's kind of what's going on here so israel says who are these knowing full well who they are and joseph says these are my god-given children so bring them over here so i can bless them now verse 10 we have uh we have kind of an ironic uh description of jacob because it says the eyes of israel meaning jacob were so dim from age that he could not see then joseph brought them close to him and he kissed them and embraced them now the reason i say this is ironic because you'll remember that when jacob years ago received the blessing from his father he was able to accomplish this because his father's eyes were dim from old age.

So just like Jacob received the blessing of the firstborn when his father was barely able to see, so now he, being an old man himself and barely able to see, is about to pronounce a blessing upon the firstborn of his son, Joseph. So Joseph brings him over. He kisses and embraces them. And then Israel says this. He says, I never expected to see your face, Joseph.

And look, God has let me see your children as well. So it's kind of a, I guess, for me anyway, it's a touching scene. Because after all that, I mean, we've talked so much about Jacob's negative qualities. and for all those you can't you can't help at the same time feel some compassion for him after all that he went through especially after the after the uh the disappearance of joseph so after all that time he's back with joseph he's had almost two decades of good years and he i mean we we saw when they got down into egypt that he thought he was about dead i mean he talks about going down to see joseph before he dies so he thought this would be the end for him and yet

God granted him 17 more years of happiness with his son. So, not only did he think he would never see Joseph's face again, but he never in his wildest imagination dreamed that he would be able to embrace and to kiss his two grandsons, the sons of his favorite son, Joseph. So, a moving seen here then we have a we have a surprise so joseph uh takes his two sons and he bows his face to the ground before his before his father to to honor them and and joseph is is kind of a stage manager here you know he's getting everything ready for the blessing that's about to be pronounced upon his sons this is a big deal a very uh this isn't just kind of a thing you do This is a formal, lasting, irrevocable blessing that's about to be pronounced.

And so Joseph wants to set everything up for his dad. and so uh he moves his two sons in front of his father's bed so that when his father places his right hand on the head of the one son and his left hand on the head of the other son that he'll get it right because manasseh is the firstborn so he puts him where the right hand of his dad will be, and Ephraim is the second born, and so he positions him where the left hand of Jacob will be, because the right hand in the scriptures is the symbol of strength and blessing. So, he brings him right to the edge of his father's bed, and then we have the surprise. the old man stretches out his right hand and he puts it on the son who's to his left

and then he stretches out his left hand and he puts it on the son who's to his right so he crisscrosses he crosses his arms and puts his hands on the head of the quote-unquote wrong son and then he begins to pronounce this blessing he says he blesses joseph and he says the god before whom my father father's abraham and isaac walked the god who's been my shepherd all my life to this day the angel who has redeemed me from all evil bless the lads and may my name live on in them in the names of my father's abraham and isaac and may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Now, let me come back to that, come back to what was just said, but notice Joseph's reaction, because when Joseph saw what was happening, he realized that his dad,

he thought anyway, his dad had messed up, and so he grabs his father's hands, and he tries to switch them to the way he thinks they should be, but his father says, look, I know, I know, my son, I know what I'm doing. I haven't lost my mind. I crossed my hands for a reason. He says, the younger, meaning Ephraim, the younger shall become a great people. He shall be greater than his older brother. So the greater blessing is pronounced upon the younger son, and the lesser blessing is pronounced upon the older son there's a there's a there's a switch a reversal that takes place as the blessing is pronounced upon Ephraim and then the lesser blessing is pronounced upon his older brother Manasseh now the reason I love this is because this fits so perfectly

with the biblical model of God reversing our expectations. Now, we've seen this repeatedly throughout the book of Genesis. Already in Genesis 4, God looks favorably upon the sacrifice of Abel, the secondborn, not favorably on the sacrifice of the firstborn, Cain. Once more, in the case of Abraham. It's Ishmael who's the firstborn and Isaac who's the secondborn, but the blessing goes to the secondborn. Same in the case of Jacob and Esau. Esau is the firstborn, but Jacob, the secondborn, receives the blessing. And so now, once more, we have the blessing going to the one who was born later in time and not to the one who's born prior. Now, this has fantastic theological implications. If you look at what God is doing throughout all of these reversals throughout the

book of Genesis, if you look at those from the perspective of the complete biblical narrative, It helps understand how Christ, as the second Adam, as Adam who's born later in time, is the one who receives the blessing of the Father and through whom the blessing then comes to us who are of his body. So it's not the firstborn Adam. It's the secondborn Adam. It's not the first, but it's the one who comes later in time, who is the source, who's the recipient of blessing and the source of blessing for us. You can see in these reversals that take place through Genesis, a preview of how God is going to do his greatest work in giving to us the true blessing of our inheritance and the true blessing of being part of his family by means of the Adam that's born later in time and through whom the blessing comes to us. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, I mean, that kind of perspective, I think, when you pull together Genesis with the salvation that we have in Christ, it helps to infuse all of these various stories, beginning with Cain and Abel and all the way now through Benjamin, I mean, through Ephraim and Manasseh, with a deeper meaning.

It shows there's this consistency in how God is at work from the beginning to do the exact opposite of what we expect. And the result of that is that we are drawn into the blessing through this second born, the one born later in time. Adoption and blessing on another's deathbed. There's theological implications in there. Yeah, this whole chapter is rich with them. We need about 80 minutes, I think, to unpack all of this, but we'll have to leave it at that. All right, all right.

Well, that's it. We're out of time. So next week we'll try to wrap it up, Chad. We will. We will. 49, we'll look at the blessing of the rest of the sons, and then we'll wrap up with the final chapter, 50. All right.

So stay tuned. All right. Well, guys, hey, coming up in just a little over two weeks, So from the time this airs, we're going to be in Dallas. We're going to be talking about parables, lots of stories there. We've been going through a lot of stories here. We're going to go through some New Testament stories in Dallas. I'll be there.

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