Genesis 48:3-7
New English Translation
3 Jacob said to Joseph, “The Sovereign God[a] appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. 4 He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful[b] and will multiply you.[c] I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants[d] as an everlasting possession.’[e]
5 “Now, as for your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they will be mine.[f] Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine just as Reuben and Simeon are. 6 Any children that you father[g] after them will be yours; they will be listed[h] under the names of their brothers in their inheritance.[i] 7 But as for me, when I was returning from Paddan, Rachel died—to my sorrow[j]—in the land of Canaan. It happened along the way, some distance from Ephrath. So I buried her there on the way to Ephrath” (that is, Bethlehem).
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Genesis 48:3 tn Heb “El Shaddai.” See the extended note on the phrase “Sovereign God” in Gen 17:1.
- Genesis 48:4 tn Heb “Look, I am making you fruitful.” The participle following הִנֵּה (hinneh) has the nuance of a certain and often imminent future.
- Genesis 48:4 tn The perfect verbal form with vav consecutive carries on the certain future idea.
- Genesis 48:4 tn The Hebrew text adds “after you,” which has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.
- Genesis 48:4 tn The Hebrew word אֲחֻזָּה (ʾakhuzzah), translated “possession,” describes a permanent holding in the land. It is the noun form of the same verb (אָחַז, ʾakhaz) that was used for the land given to them in Goshen (Gen 47:27).
- Genesis 48:5 sn They will be mine. Jacob is here adopting his two grandsons Manasseh and Ephraim as his sons, and so they will have equal share with the other brothers. They will be in the place of Joseph and Levi (who will become a priestly tribe) in the settlement of the land. See I. Mendelsohn, “A Ugaritic Parallel to the Adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh,” IEJ (1959): 180-83.
- Genesis 48:6 tn Or “you fathered.”
- Genesis 48:6 tn Heb “called” or “named.”
- Genesis 48:6 sn Listed under the names of their brothers in their inheritance. This means that any subsequent children of Joseph will be incorporated into the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.
- Genesis 48:7 tn Heb “upon me, against me,” which might mean something like “to my sorrow.”
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