Genesis 48

Notes

1. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "strengthened himself" (KJV, RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20

   וַיִּתְחַזֵּק is the hithpael of חָזַק, reflexive: the sick man gathers what strength he has before he speaks (the same stem of David in 1 Sam 30:6, "David strengthened himself in Adonai"; of the people, 2 Sam 10:12). The row declares the qal "be strong" and the hiphil "hold fast"; the hithpael is not yet declared, and the packet shows no earlier printing of this stem (unknown). The qal's English is kept and made reflexive, so the root stays audible. Ruled (136).

2. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 9

   נִרְאָה is the niphal of רָאָה "see," the verb of every appearance in Genesis (12:7; 17:1; 26:2, 24; 35:9). "Was seen" keeps the one verb where English says "appeared." Jacob retells Bethel: the name El Shaddai is the one spoken there at 35:11, and the promise of v. 4 repeats 35:11–12 and Isaac's blessing at 28:3. Luz is the old name of Bethel (28:19).

3. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 88, 124

   הִנְנִי here is the particle with a participle, "look, I am making you…," a presentation of what is about to happen, as at 6:17 ("look, I am bringing the flood"). It is not the answer "Here I am" (22:1, 11; 46:2), and takes the home gloss. "An assembly of peoples" (קְהַל עַמִּים) is Isaac's phrase at 28:3; 35:11 has "an assembly of nations." "A tenure of the age" repeats 17:8.

4. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 18, 74

   The two grandsons are taken as sons and given the rank of Jacob's first two, Reuben and Simeon, the two who will be passed over in 49:3–7. Ephraim is now named first, before Jacob's hands have crossed. Joseph's share becomes two tribes (Josh 14:4; 16–17), and 1 Chr 5:1–2 reads this verse as the birthright taken from Reuben and "given to the sons of Joseph." The births "until my coming" are the two of 41:50–52; "your birth" in v. 6 (מוֹלֶדֶת, H4138) is any later offspring, who will inherit under their brothers' names.

5. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 74

   מֵתָה עָלַי "died upon me": the preposition carries the burden to the speaker, as in 33:13 ("the nursing flocks are upon me") and 1 Sam 17:32. Rashi takes it as the grief that still weighs on him, and as an apology to Joseph: "I did not carry her even to Bethlehem to bury her in the land." The account is 35:16–20; "a tract of land" (כִּבְרַת אֶרֶץ) repeats 35:16. Jer 31:15 has Rachel weeping for her children at Ramah, and Matt 2:18 sets it at Bethlehem.

6. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Rulings 2, 37

   The scene repeats 27:1: Isaac's eyes were dim (כָּהָה) "from seeing" when he blessed the younger son, and here Israel's are "heavy" (כָּבֵד, 39) and he cannot see. In both, the blind father blesses the younger above the elder, but this time the father knows what he is doing (v. 19). זֹקֶן "oldness" is used only here; it is the abstract noun of זָקֵן "be old" (H2204), and is printed "oldness," beside צְעִרָה "youngness" (43:33), so that "old age" stays with זְקֻנִים and זִקְנָה.

7. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "I had not thought to see thy face" (KJV) / "I had not thought to see your face" (RSV)

   Rulings 2, 20

   פִלָּלְתִּי is the piel of פָּלַל, whose hithpael is "pray" (20:7, 17). The piel is to judge between, to arbitrate (1 Sam 2:25; Ps 106:30) or, as here and at Ezek 16:52, to reckon a thing as possible: "I did not judge that I would see your face." The row leaves the piel to be fixed when reached, and the packet shows no earlier printing of it (unknown). "Deem" is printed, because "think" may be needed elsewhere and "reckon" is חָשַׁב's (50:20). The infinitive רְאֹה becomes a finite clause (10). Ruled (136).

8. Reading↩ Back to the text

   Ruling 39

   "From beside his knees" (מֵעִם בִּרְכָּיו): the boys had been set on or between Israel's knees, the gesture by which a child is taken as one's own (30:3 "let her bear on my knees"; 50:23 Machir's sons "born on the knees of Joseph"). The adoption of v. 5 is now acted out. The one who prostrates himself is Joseph, by the singular verb; the LXX and the Samaritan have the plural, "they prostrated themselves." Bowing "to the land" is the settled form.

9. Decision↩ Back to the text

   Expected: "guiding his hands wittingly" (KJV) / "crossing his hands" (RSV)

   Rulings 1, 2, 3

   שִׂכֵּל אֶת־יָדָיו has two readings. (a) The verb שָׂכַל "have insight," the verb of 3:6 ("desirable for giving insight"): Targum Onkelos "he made his hands wise," Rashi "he made his hands act with understanding, knowingly," and so the KJV. (b) A second root "cross, interlace," known from Arabic šakala "tie, plait": the LXX ἐναλλὰξ τὰς χεῖρας "his hands crosswise," the Vulgate commutans manus, and so the RSV. The second root is not otherwise attested in Hebrew, and the first is the home gloss. The piel is factitive: he caused his hands to act with insight. The row's standing note gives "attend to" for שָׂכַל with an object, but that English is now פָּקַד's (123b), so the factitive is printed with the home gloss and the note is corrected (136h). The crossing is what the scene shows (Ephraim stood at Israel's left, v. 13), and the insight is what v. 19 says: "I know, my son, I know." Tertullian (On Baptism 8) saw in the crossed hands the figure of the cross; the Hebrew does not decide between the readings. כִּי is kept as "for": the firstborn's place is why the hands had to know what they did. Some read it concessively, "although Manasseh was the firstborn" (NJPS); English "for" leaves both.

10. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 81, 14, 102

    The blessing of vv. 15b–16 is lined by the translator under ruling 81(b); the Leningrad Codex runs it as prose. It is built of three parallel titles (the Elohim before whose face… the Elohim shepherding… the messenger redeeming…) with one verb, "may he bless," and the cola follow the accents (14): the atnach falls under וַיֹּאמַר in v. 15 and under וְיִצְחָק in v. 16. "Walked about" is the hithpael of הָלַךְ, the walking of Enoch and Noah with Elohim (5:22, 24; 6:9) and the command to Abraham, "walk about before my face" (17:1; 24:40).

11. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 10, 118

    This is the first time Elohim is called the shepherd of a person. Jacob was himself a shepherd (30:31; 31:38–40); 49:24 has "the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel," and Ps 23:1 "Adonai is my shepherd." The participle הָרֹעֶה is kept as a participle: the shepherding goes on.

12. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "all my life long" (KJV, RSV)

    Ruling 2

    מֵעוֹדִי is "from my still," the particle עוֹד "still" with a suffix: "from as long as I still have been." Num 22:30 has the same idiom (מֵעוֹדְךָ "ever since you were," the donkey to Balaam), and Ps 104:33 its counterpart בְּעוֹדִי "while I still am." The settled gloss "still" is held, so that the particle is not dissolved into "life."

13. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 62, 46

    "The messenger redeeming me" stands in the same series as "the Elohim" twice, and the three take one singular verb, יְבָרֵךְ "may he bless." Jacob had met a messenger at Bethel (28:12; 31:11–13, where the messenger says "I am the El of Bethel") and wrestled a man at Peniel whom he named as Elohim (32:25–31; Hos 12:4–5 calls him "a messenger"). Readers have divided on the identity. Rashi takes the messenger as a created being whom Elohim regularly sends to Jacob. Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 58) and Christian tradition after him read the messenger who is also Elohim as the Logos. The verb גָּאַל appears here for the first time. It is the duty of the near kinsman who buys back land, a person or a name (Lev 25:25–49; Ruth 3–4) and avenges blood (Num 35:19), and it is the title of Adonai in Isaiah (41:14; 43:14; 44:6) and Job 19:25. It is printed "redeem," as its row fixes.

14. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 25, 17

    וְיִדְגּוּ is the only occurrence of the verb דָּגָה, made from דָּג "fish" (1:26, 28): "let them fish-multiply." "Teem" carries the swarming of fish without the false sense that "fish" would give the verb (to catch fish). The rabbis heard the fish. b. Berakhot 20a: as fish in the sea are covered by the water and the evil eye has no power over them, so the seed of Joseph. Genesis Rabbah 97:3 adds that fish multiply without number. "Abundance" (רֹב) and "the inward part of the land" (קֶרֶב) are their home glosses.

15. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Rulings 127, 128

    "The small one" is קָטָן of the younger of a pair (127j, 128e), and "greater" is the comparative מִמֶּנּוּ with "be great." מְלֹא הַגּוֹיִם "the fullness of the nations" is Ephraim's future. The LXX has πλῆθος ἐθνῶν "a multitude of nations"; Paul's πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν "the fullness of the gentiles" (Rom 11:25) has the same words, a link the Hebrew makes possible and does not require. The prophets later use "Ephraim" for the northern kingdom (Isa 7:2; Hos 5:3).

16. Reading↩ Back to the text

    Ruling 124

    "By you shall Israel bless" is a promise that Israel will use the boys' names as the form of a blessing, and gives the form. "You" is singular, so the blessing is spoken to each son, or to Joseph in them. Jewish fathers still bless their sons on the eve of the Sabbath with these words: "May Elohim put you like Ephraim and like Manasseh." The second "And he put Ephraim before the face of Manasseh" uses the same verb as the blessing's "put" (שׂוּם): Jacob does to their order what he has asked Elohim to do to them.

17. Decision↩ Back to the text

    Expected: "one portion above thy brethren" (KJV) / "one mountain slope" (RSV)

    Rulings 1, 17, 18

    שְׁכֶם is "shoulder," the body word (9:23; 21:14; 24:15), and the name of the city Shechem (12:6; 33:18; 34). The figure is a ridge of land like a shoulder; the KJV and the Targums take it as a share. Shechem is in the word, and the history bears it out: Jacob bought a field there (33:19), his sons took the city with the sword (34:25–29), Joseph's bones were buried in that field (Josh 24:32), and John 4:5 places Jacob's well "near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph." The verse names a conquest with sword and bow that the narrative never recounts, and Jacob had condemned the slaughter at Shechem (34:30; 49:5–7). Targum Onkelos reads "with my prayer and my petition," and Rashi gives that too. English cannot keep body, land and city in one word, so the home gloss is printed and the city goes here. The name also leads into 49:15, where Issachar "stretched out his shoulder to carry."