Genesis 48-50

Genesis 48

¹And it came to pass after these things, that one said to Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick: and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

²And one told Jacob, and said, Behold, thy son Joseph cometh unto thee: and Israel strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.

³And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me,

⁴and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

⁵And now thy two sons, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh, even as Reuben and Simeon, shall be mine.

⁶And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine; they shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance.

⁷And 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 way to come unto Ephrath: and I buried her there in the way to Ephrath (the same is Beth-lehem).

⁸And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these?

⁹And Joseph said unto his father, They are my sons, whom God hath given me here. And he said, Bring them, I pray thee, unto me, and I will bless them.

¹⁰Now the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see. And he brought them near unto him; and he kissed them, and embraced them.

¹¹And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face: and, lo, God hath let me see thy seed also.

¹²And Joseph brought them out from between his knees; and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.

¹³And 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 unto him.

¹⁴And 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 firstborn.

¹⁵And he blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day,

¹⁶the angel which 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.

¹⁷And 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 unto Manasseh’s head.

¹⁸And Joseph said unto his father, Not so, my father: for this is the firstborn; put thy right hand upon his head.

¹⁹And 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.

²⁰And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.

²¹And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.

²²Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.

Genesis 49

¹And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the latter days.

²Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; And hearken unto Israel your father.

³Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength; The excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.

⁴Unstable as water, thou shalt not have the excellency; Because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed: Then defiledst thou it: he went up to my couch.

⁵Simeon and Levi are brethren; Weapons of violence are their swords.

⁶O my soul, come not thou into their council; Unto their assembly, my glory, be not thou united; For in their anger they slew a man, And in their selfwill they houghed an ox.

⁷Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; And their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, And scatter them in Israel.

⁸Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise: Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; Thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.

⁹Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, thou art gone up: He stooped down, he couched as a lion, And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?

¹⁰The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh come; And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be.

¹¹Binding his foal unto the vine, And his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; He hath washed his garments in wine, And his vesture in the blood of grapes:

¹²His eyes shall be red with wine, And his teeth white with milk.

¹³Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea: And he shall be for an haven of ships; And his border shall be upon Zidon.

¹⁴Issachar is a strong ass, Couching down between the sheepfolds:

¹⁵And he saw a resting place that it was good, And the land that it was pleasant; And he bowed his shoulder to bear, And became a servant under taskwork.

¹⁶Dan shall judge his people, As one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷Dan shall be a serpent in the way, An adder in the path, That biteth the horse’s heels, So that his rider falleth backward.

¹⁸I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.

¹⁹Gad, a troop shall press upon him: But he shall press upon their heel.

²⁰Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, And he shall yield royal dainties.

²¹Naphtali is a hind let loose: He giveth goodly words.

²²Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a fountain; His branches run over the wall.

²³The archers have sorely grieved him, And shot at him, and persecuted him:

²⁴But his bow abode in strength, And the arms of his hands were made strong, By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob, (From thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel,)

²⁵Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, And by the Almighty, who shall bless thee, With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that coucheth beneath, Blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.

²⁶The blessings of thy father Have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors Unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

²⁷Benjamin is a wolf that ravineth: In the morning he shall devour the prey, And at even he shall divide the spoil.

²⁸All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

³⁰in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace:

³¹there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah:

³²the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of Heth.

³³And when Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

Genesis 50

¹And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

²And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.

³And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of embalming: and the Egyptians wept for him threescore and ten days.

⁴And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

⁵My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

⁶And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

⁷And 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,

⁸and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

⁹And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

¹⁰And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

¹¹And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abel-mizraim, which is beyond Jordan.

¹²And his sons did unto him according as he commanded them:

¹³for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a buryingplace, of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

¹⁴And Joseph returned into Egypt, he, and his brethren, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

¹⁵And when Joseph’s brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, It may be that Joseph will hate us, and will fully requite us all the evil which we did unto him.

¹⁶And they sent a message unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying,

¹⁷So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the transgression of thy brethren, and their sin, for that they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him.

¹⁸And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.

¹⁹And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?

²⁰And as for you, ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.

²¹Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.

²²And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father’s house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

²³And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation: the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were born upon Joseph’s knees.

²⁴And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die: but God will surely visit you, and bring you up out of this land unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

²⁵And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.

²⁶So Joseph died, being an hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.