(BA) Genesis 48

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Very little revision has been done to this chapter, and I still have a great deal of work to do.

1 Now after these things, one said to Joseph, Behold, your father is sick. And he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

2 And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, your son Joseph is coming to you. And Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.

3 And Jacob said to Joseph, El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, 4 and said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a congregation of peoples, and will give this land to your seed after you for an everlasting possession. 5 And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine. 6 And your issue, that thou begettest after them, shall be thine; they shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance. 7 And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when there was still some distance to come to Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem). 8 And Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said, Who are these? 9 And Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me here. And he said, Bring them, I pray you, to 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 to him; and he kissed them, and embraced them. 11 And Israel said to Joseph, I had not thought to see your face: and, lo, God hath let me see your seed also. 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 to 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 first-born. 15 And he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God who hath fed me all my life long to this day, 16 the angel who hath 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 to Manasseh's head. 18 And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father; for this is the first-born; put your 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: howbeit his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. 20 And he blessed them that day, saying, In you* will Israel bless, saying, God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. 21 And Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I die: but God will be with you, and bring you again to the land of your fathers. 22 Moreover I have given to you one portion above your brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.

(1:1) On the lack of quotation marks, see Quotation marks.

(1:3) El Shaddai. This is the Hebrew term transliterated. The ASV, following an old tradition, reads "God Almighty". But while El might be translateable as "God", it is not at all clear that Shaddai should be read as "Almighty". See Shaddai.

The text above began with the ASV as a base text, although I've sanded off some of the hard edges of the archaic English, and made some other changes, which are in the notes.

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