Genesis 48:1-22
48 And after these things Joseph was told “Your father is sick”; and he took with him his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim.
2 And Jacob was informed “Here is your son Joseph coming to you”; and Israel mustered his strength and sat up in his bed.
3 And Jacob said to Joseph “El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in Canaan and blessed me,
4 and said to me ‘Here, I am causing you to breed and multiply, and will make you an assembly of peoples and give this country to your descendants after you as a perpetual property.’
5 And now your two sons that were born to you in Egypt before I came to Egypt to you are mine: Ephraim and Manasseh, the same as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine.
6 And your offspring that you have had born since then shall be yours; they shall be called by their brothers’ names in their tenure of estate.
7 And I—when I was coming from Paddan my Rachel died in Canaan on the way, where it was a considerable way to Ephrath, and I buried her there on the way to Ephrath—” (that is, Bethlehem).
8 And Israel saw Joseph’s sons and said “Who are these?”
9 And Joseph said to his father “They are my sons whom God has given me in this country.” And he said “Fetch them to me and let me bless them.”
10 And Israel’s eyes were decrepit with old age, he could not see; and he brought them up to him, and he kissed them and hugged them.
11 And Israel said to Joseph “To see your face was a thing I did not think of, and here God has let me see your offspring too.”
12 And Joseph brought them out from his knees, and prostrated himself on the ground in reverence.
13 And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand, at Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left, at Israel’s right, and brought them up to him.
14 And Israel put out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, when he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head; he laid his hands out of order, because Manasseh was the eldest.
15 And he blessed Joseph and said “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has tended me ever since I existed to this day,
16 the Angel who has seen me clear of all disaster, bless the boys; and let them be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them teem profusely in the heart of the land.”
17 And Joseph saw that his father would lay his right hand on Ephraim’s head, and did not like it; and he grasped his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s.
18 And Joseph said to his father “Not like that, father, because this is the eldest; lay your right hand on his head.”
19 But his father refused and said “I know, my son, I know: he too will become a people and he too will be great; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will be the plenitude of the nations”;
20 and he blessed them that day in the words “By you shall Israel bless, saying ‘God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh,’” and set Ephraim before Manasseh.
21 And Israel said to Joseph “Here I am dying, but God will be with you and bring you back to your fathers’ country;
22 * and I give you one shoulder above your brothers, which I took out of the hands of the Amorites with my sword and my bow.”
Footnotes
^ 48:22 (shoulder) Heb. shekem
