Hello, this is Father Paul and I'm glad we're taking this journey together to read the Bible
in a year.
Yesterday we heard about Joseph's reunion with his father and his brothers and how they
relocated resettled from the land of Canaan to the land of Goshen within Egypt.
And today we're going to hear about Jacob meeting Joseph's family and how he blesses
his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh but he blesses them in a very unexpected way.
So let's begin.
Today's reading is from Genesis chapters 47 through 50.
Chapter 47.
Then Joseph went and told Pharaoh and said, My father and my brothers, their flocks and
their herds, and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan, and indeed they
are in the land of Goshen.
And he took five men from among his brothers and presented them to Pharaoh.
Then Pharaoh said to his brothers, What is your occupation?
And they said to Pharaoh, Your servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers.
And they said to Pharaoh, We have come to dwell in the land, because your servants have no
pasture for their flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan.
Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.
Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, Your father and your brothers have come to you.
The land of Egypt is before you.
Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land.
Let them dwell in the land of Goshen.
And if you know any competent man among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.
Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and said to him before Pharaoh.
And Jacob blessed Pharaoh.
Pharaoh said to Jacob, How old are you?
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and
thirty years.
Fewer than evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained
to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
So Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from before Pharaoh.
And Joseph situated his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of
Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Ramses, as Pharaoh had commanded.
Then Joseph provided his father, his brothers, and all his father's household with bread,
according to the number in their families.
Now there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land
of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine.
Then Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the
land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's
house.
So when the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians
came to Joseph and said, Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence?
For the money has failed.
Then Joseph said, Give your livestock, and I will give you bread for your livestock,
if the money is gone.
So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for
the horses, the flocks, the cattle of the herds, and for the donkeys.
Thus he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock that year.
When that year had ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, We will not
hide from my lord that our money is gone, my lord also has our herds of livestock.
There is nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our lands.
Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land?
Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants of Pharaoh.
Give us seed that we may live and not die, that the land may not be desolate.
Then Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every man of the Egyptians sold
his field, because the famine was severe upon them.
So the land became Pharaoh's, and as for the people, he moved them into the cities, from
one end of the borders of Egypt to the other end.
Only the land of the priests he did not buy.
For the priests had rations allotted to them by Pharaoh, and they ate the rations which
Pharaoh gave them, therefore they did not sell their lands.
Then Joseph said to the people, Indeed I have bought you and your land this day for Pharaoh.
Look here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land, and it shall come to pass in the
harvest that you shall give one fifth to Pharaoh, four fifths shall be your own, as seed for
the field and for your food, for those of your households and as food for your little
ones.
Then they said, You have saved our lives, let us find favor in the sight of my Lord,
and we will be Pharaoh's servants.
And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt to this day, that Pharaoh should have
one fifth, except for the land of the priests only, which did not become Pharaoh's.
So Israel dwelt in the land of Egypt in the country of Goshen, and had possessions there,
and grew and multiplied exceedingly, and Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years,
so the length of Jacob's life was one hundred and forty seven years.
When the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him,
Now if I have found favor in your sight, please put your hand under my thigh, and deal kindly
and truly with me.
Please do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers.
You shall carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.
And he said, I will do as you have said.
And he said, Swear to me, and he swore to him, so Israel bowed himself on the head of
the bed.
Chapter 48 Now it came to pass after these things that
Joseph was told, Indeed your father is sick, and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh
and Ephraim.
And Jacob was told, Look, your son Joseph is coming to you.
And Israel strengthened himself, and sat up on the bed.
Then Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty, appear 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
of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting
possession.
And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt,
before I came to you in Egypt, are mine.
As Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.
Your offspring, whom you beget after them, shall be yours.
They will be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance.
But as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died beside me in the land of Canaan on the
way, when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, and I buried her there on
the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.
Then Israel saw Joseph's sons and said, Who are these?
Joseph said to his father, They are my sons, whom God has given me in this place.
And he said, Please bring them to me, and I will bless them.
Now the eyes of Israel were dim with age, so that he could not see.
Then Joseph brought them near him, and he kissed them and embraced them.
And Israel said to Joseph, I had not thought to see your face, but in fact God has also
shown me your offspring.
So Joseph brought them from beside his knees, and he bowed down with his face to the earth.
And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and
Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near him.
Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger,
and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the
firstborn.
And he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,
the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from
all evil, bless the lads, let my name be named upon them, in the name of my fathers Abraham
and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased
him, so he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head, to Manasseh's
head.
And Joseph said to his father, not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn.
Put your right hand on his head.
But his father refused and said, I know my son, I know.
He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother
shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.
So he blessed them that day saying, by you Israel will bless, saying, may God make you
as Ephraim and as Manasseh.
And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
Then Israel said to Joseph, behold I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back
to the land of your fathers.
Moreover I have given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the hand
of the Amorite, with my sword and with my bow.
Chapter 49 And Jacob called his sons and said, gather
together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.
Gather together and hear, you sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father.
Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency
of dignity and the excellency of power.
Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father's bed, then you
defiled it, he went up to my couch.
Simeon and Levi are brothers, instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.
Let not my soul enter their council, let not my honor be united to their assembly, for
in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.
Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce, and their wrath, for it is cruel.
I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.
Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise, your hand shall be on the neck of
your enemies, your father's children shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion's whelp, from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He bows down, he lies down as a lion, and as a lion, Hushar rouse him.
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh
comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the people, binding his donkey to the vine,
and his donkey's colt to the choice vine.
He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.
His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea, he shall become a haven for ships, and his
border shall adjoin Sidon.
Issachar is a strong donkey, lying down between two burdens.
He saw that rest was good, and that the land was pleasant.
He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden, and became a band of slaves.
Dan shall judge his people.
As one of the tribes of Israel, Dan shall be a serpent on the way, a viper by the path,
that bites the horse's heels, so that its rider shall fall backward.
I have waited for your salvation, O Lord.
Gad, a troop, shall tramp upon him, but he shall triumph at last.
Bread from Asher shall be rich, and he shall yield royal dainties.
Naphtali is a deer let loose, he uses beautiful words.
Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well.
His branches run over the wall, the archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and
hated him, but his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong,
by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.
From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel, by the God of your Father who will help you,
and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the
deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
The blessings of your Father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors.
Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills, they shall be on the head of Joseph,
and on the crown of the head of him who is separate from his brothers.
Benjamin is a ravenous wolf.
In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil.
All these were the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their Father spoke to them,
and he blessed them, he blessed each one according to his own blessing.
Then he charged them and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people, bury me with
my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is
in the field of Makpela, which is before Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought
with the field of Ephron the Hittite as a possession for a burial place.
There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife, there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife,
and there I buried Leah.
The field and the cave that is there were purchased from the sons of Heth, and when
Jacob had finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed and breathed
his last, and was gathered to his people.
Chapter 50
Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him, and kissed him, and Joseph
commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father.
So the physicians embalmed Israel.
Forty days were required for him, for such are the days required for those who are embalmed,
and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.
Now when the days of mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh saying,
If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the hearing of Pharaoh saying, My
father made me swear saying, Behold I am dying, in my grave which I dug for myself in the
land of Canaan.
There you shall bury me.
Now therefore please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come back.
And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury your father, as he made you swear.
So Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh,
the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, as well as the house
of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's house.
Only the little ones, their flocks and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.
And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen, and it was a very great gathering.
Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned
there with a great and very solemn lamentation.
He observed seven days of mourning for his father.
And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing
floor of Atad, they said, This is a deep mourning of the Egyptians.
For its name was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
So his sons did for him just as he had commanded them.
For his sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in a cave of the field of Makphela
before Mamre, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as property
for a burial place.
And after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and
all who went up with him to bury his father.
When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, Perhaps Joseph will hate
us and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.
So they sent messengers to Joseph saying, Before your father died he commanded, saying,
Thus you shall say to Joseph, I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and
their sin, for they did evil to you.
Now please forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father.
And Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face and they said, Behold, we
are your servants.
Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?
But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring
it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.
Now therefore do not be afraid, I will provide for you and your little ones.
And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
So Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived 110 years.
Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation.
The children of Makir, the son of Manasseh, were also brought up on Joseph's knees.
And Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you
out of this land, to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying, God will surely visit you
and you shall carry up my bones from here.
So Joseph died, being 110 years old, and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
Congratulations, we finished together the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis.
I am very proud of you.
I hope you enjoyed today's reading as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing you
again tomorrow to continue on our journey.
God bless you and have a great day.