Bible Commentaries

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

From between his knees. — That is, From between his father’s knees, that he might place them right to receive the blessing, presenting them again according to their age. This he did for the best; but "God only wise" had otherwise ordered it. We many times think we do well, when it proves much otherwise. "Lean not therefore to thine own understanding," saith the wise man; Proverbs 3:5 but make out to him that "dwells with prudence." Proverbs 8:12

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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 unto him.

Both, Ephraim in his right hand. — The right hand hath the pre-eminence of the left among most people: yet not so among the Turks; their soldiery especially. The right hand they hold uppermost ibr the clergy, and the left for a soldier: because it gives a man possession of his companion’s sword. Thus do both orders converse without the depression of either, saith mine author. Sir Henry Blunt’s Voyage.

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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 firstborn.

Guiding his hands wittingly. — Cognoscebat palpando manibus suis, saith Junius: Intelligere fecit manus, saith Patens. An emphatical metaphor; as if he should say, Jacob with his eyes could not distinguish them, but his hands shall therefore do the office of his eyes. Bartolus Bartol., lib. i., De Ver. Oblig. writes of Dr Gabriel Nele, that by the motion of the lips only, without any utterance, he understood all men; perceived and read in every man’s countenance what was his conceit. But that is far more credible, and no less admirable, that Jerome reports of Didymus of Alexandria; that though he had been blind of a little child, yet he was excellently skilled in all the liberal arts, and had written Commentaries upon the Psalms and Gospels, being at this time, saith he, eighty-three years of age. Jerome, in Catalogo Virorum Illustrium.

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

God, beforewhom my fathers did walk. — This is the highest praise that can be given to ancestors; this is the crown of all commendation, to have walked with God as a man walketh with his friend. This is better than a thousand escutcheons.

The God which fed me all my life long. — As a shepherd tends and feeds his sheep. Psalms 23:1 ; Psalms 80:1 Jacob looks beyond all second causes, and sees, as once at Bethel, God on the top of the ladder. Genesis 28:12-15

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The Angel which 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.

The Angel which redeemed me. — Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, the Mediator of the New Testament, the Redeemer, the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. "For we were not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ, as of a lamb undefiled." 1 Peter 1:19 Paul by that "freedom" Acts 22:28 escaped whipping: we, by this, the pain of eternal torment.

And let my name be named on them. — Lest any should think it to be some prejudice to them that they were born in Egypt, and of an Egyptian mother, he adopts them for his own.

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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 unto Manasseh’s head.

And when Joseph saw that, … — So great a prophet and diviner as Joseph was, in this was out in his judgment. He seeth not that man’s dignity is "not by works," or nature, but grace and "election." Romans 9:7-8 ; Romans 9:11-12

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

Not so, my father, … — Here are a couple of holy prophets differing in their judgments; yet not about the substance of the blessing, but the circumstance of it. Wonder not though such things still fall out in the true Church, and the doctors be likewise divided in points less material, and that touch not the foundation. Luther interprets those words of Christ, "This is my body," synecdochically; Calvin, metonymically. Hence the Jesuits straight cry out: The Spirit of God dissents not from itself; but these interpretations dissent one from another, therefore they are not of the Spirit. See The Peace of Rome. Now it were easy to stop their foul mouths, by telling them of their own far worse differences. But is it not a doleful thing that we should, with those birds, aqnoscere in nostris vulneribus nostras pennas? "Brother goeth to law with brother, and that before infidels." 1 Corinthians 6:6 This is the devil’s malice, to sow tares, … Christ came to destroy his works; yet never were so many possessed as about that time.

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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: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.

And his father refused, and said. — Here are father and son divided in matter of ceremony, as Bishop Babington observeth. This hath been an ancient quarrel, from the very cradle of the Christian Church. The Jewish converts stood hard for a mixture of Christ and Moses. Their rites they called "the rudiments of the world"; Colossians 2:8 because they held them as needful as the four elements of the world; or as the first letters of the book, to school God’s people. Soon after, what a dispute was there among the primitive Christians, even unto blows and bloodshed, about the time of keeping Easter, and other like trifles and niceties! St Augustine complains, that in his time the Church, which the mercy of God would have to be at liberty, was woefully oppressed with many burdens and bondages this way; so that the condition of the Jews was in this respect more tolerable, for that they were held under by legal injunctions, and not by human presumptions. Queritur Aug. suo tempore Ecclesiam, quam misericormdia Dei esse liberam voluit & c. - Pareus, in Matthew 15:2 . What would this father have said to the following times, under the rise and reign of Antichrist? wherein the formality of God’s worship had utterly eaten up the reality of it, as Pharaoh’s lean kine did the fatter; and gotten out the very heart of it, as the ivy dealeth by the oak it grows on. Our heroic reformers, Luther, Zuinglius, …, pruned and pared off these luxuriances for the most part; which caused John Hunt, a Roman Catholic, in his humble appeal to King James, thus to blaspheme: - The God of the Protestants is the most uncivil and ill-mannered God of all those who have borne the name of gods upon the earth; yea, worse than Pan, god of the clowns, which can endure no ceremonies, nor good manners at all. Dr Sheldon’s Mark of the Beast., ep. ded. Scultet. Annul. But yet, what a grievous stir was there, about these indifferents, between Luther and Carolostadius, at Wittenberg; between the doctors of Magdeburg and Leipsic, Anno Dom. 1549; Alsted., Chron., p. 550. and between Calvin Beza, in Vita. and his auditors of Geneva, about wafer cakes at the communion; insomuch as he was compelled to depart the city till he had yielded they should be used, though he never liked them, but could have wished it otherwise. Who knows not what jars and heart burnings were here between Ridley and Hooper, two godly bishops, in King Edward VI’s time, about cap and surplice. They could never agree till they met in prison; and then misery bred unity; then they could heartily bewail their former dissensions about matters of no more moment. Peter Martyr commends it to the care of Queen Elizabeth, Epist. 36, ad Reg. Elizabeth. that church governors endeavour not to carry the gospel into England upon the cart of needless ceremonies. By his advice, among others, in King Edward VI’s days, some people contending for one image, some for another, the king took down all those Balaam’s blocks. And the very self-same day and hour wherein the Reformation enjoined by Parliament was put ia execution at London by burning of idolatrous images, the English put to flight their enemies in Musselburgh field, as Mr Fox hath well observed. Act. and Mon.

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