Parashat Vayechi

Joseph’s Promise to Jacob

²⁸ Now Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for 17 years, so the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years. ²⁹ As the time of Israel’s death drew near, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please put your hand under my thigh and show me faithful kindness. Please do not bury me in Egypt. ³⁰ When I lie down with my fathers, you must carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial place.”

So he said, “I myself will do according to your word.”

³¹ “Swear to me,” he said. So he swore to him. Then Israel bowed down in worship on the head of his staff.^[a]

Blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh

48 After these things, someone told Joseph, “Behold, your father is sick.” So he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with him. ² When someone told Jacob, saying, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel summoned his strength and sat up in the bed.

³ Then Jacob said to Joseph, “El Shaddai appeared to me in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed me.” ⁴ He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and multiply you and turn you into an assembly of peoples, and I will give this land to your seed after you as an everlasting possession.’ ⁵ So now, your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine. Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just like Reuben and Simeon. ⁶ Any descendent of yours whom you father after them will be yours; they will be identified by the names of their brothers for their inheritance. ⁷ “Now as for me, when I came from Paddan, to my sorrow Rachel died along the way, in the land of Canaan, while we were still a distance from entering Ephrath. And I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).”

⁸ Then Israel saw Joseph’s sons and said, “Who are these?”

⁹ Joseph said to his father, “They’re my sons, whom God has given me here.”

Then he said, “Please bring them to me, so I may bless them.”

¹⁰ Now Israel’s eyes had grown heavy with old age—he could not see. So he brought them near to him, and he kissed them and hugged them. ¹¹ Then Israel said to Joseph, “To see your face, I didn’t expect—and look, God has let me see your offspring as well!”

¹² Then Joseph took them from his knees and bowed with his face down to the ground. ¹³ Then Joseph took the two of them—Ephraim with his right hand across from Israel’s left, and Manasseh with his left hand across from Israel’s right—and brought them close to him. ¹⁴ But Israel stretched out his right hand and placed it upon Ephraim’s head (though he was the younger), and his left hand upon Manasseh’s head, crossing his hands (though Manasseh was the firstborn). ¹⁵ Then he blessed Joseph and said,

¹⁷ When Joseph saw that his father placed his right hand upon Ephraim’s head, it was wrong in his eyes. So his took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. ¹⁸ Joseph said to his father, “Not like that, my father, because this one’s the firstborn. Put your right hand upon his head.”

¹⁹ But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also will become a people, and he also will become great. But his younger brother will become greater than he and his seed will be the fullness of the nations.” ²⁰ Then he blessed them that day saying,

Thus he put Ephraim before Manasseh.

²¹ Then Israel said to Joseph, “Look, I am about to die. But God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. ²² Now I myself give you one portion more than your brothers, that which I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and my bow.”

Jacob Speaks Over His Sons

49 Jacob called his sons and said to them:

²⁸ These are the tribes of Israel, twelve in all, and this is what their father spoke to them. He blessed them, each one he blessed with a suitable blessing. ²⁹ Then he charged them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, ³⁰ in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, that is next to Mamre in the land of Canaan—the field that Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite as a property for burial. ³¹ There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah, and there I buried Leah. ³² The field was purchased along with the cave in it from the sons of Het.”

³³ When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, then breathed his last and was gathered to his peoples.

Lamentation for Jacob

50 Joseph fell upon his father’s face, wept over him and kissed him. ² Then Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father, so the physicians embalmed Israel. ³ They took 40 days for him, because that is how long embalming takes, and Egypt wept 70 days.

⁴ When the days of formal weeping passed, Joseph spoke to Pharaoh’s house saying, “If I’ve found favor in your eyes, please say in Pharaoh’s ears, ⁵ “My father made me take an oath saying, ‘Behold, I am about to die. In my tomb—which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan—there you must bury me.’ So now, please allow me to go up and bury my father, and then return.”

⁶ Pharaoh said, “Go up and bury your father just as he made you swear on oath.”

⁷ So Joseph went up to bury his father. Also all of Pharaoh’s servants, the elders of his household and all the elders of the land of Egypt went up with him, ⁸ along with all of Joseph’s house, his brothers, and his father’s household. Only their children and their flocks and cattle were left in the land of Goshen. ⁹ Chariots and horsemen also went up with him—it was a very impressive company.

¹⁰ When they came to the threshing floor of the bramble on the other side of the Jordan, they mourned there—a very great and solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father. ¹¹ When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning ritual at the threshing floor of the prickly bush, they said, “A solemn mourning ritual this is for the Egyptians.” That is why it is named Abel-Mizraim, which is on the other side of the Jordan.

¹² So Jacob’s sons did for him just as he commanded them. ¹³ His sons carried him to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, the field that Abraham bought as a property for burial from Ephron the Hittite, next to Mamre.

¹⁴ After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all those who went up with him to bury his father.

Joseph Comforts His Brothers

¹⁵ When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father had died, they said, “Maybe Joseph will be hostile towards us and pay us back in full for all the evil we showed him. ¹⁶ So they charged Joseph saying, “Before his death, your father gave a command, saying, ¹⁷ “Thus you must say to Joseph: ‘Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they treated you wrongly.’ Therefore, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”

Then Joseph wept when they spoke to him, ¹⁸ and his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your slaves!”

¹⁹ But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. For am I in the place of God? ²⁰ Yes, you yourselves planned evil against me. God planned it for good, in order to bring about what it is this day—to preserve the lives of many people. ²¹ So now, don’t be afraid. I myself will provide food for you and your little ones.” So he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.

²² Joseph remained in Egypt—he and his father’s household—and Joseph lived 110 years. ²³ Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim’s sons. Also the sons of Machir, Manasseh’s son, were born upon Joseph’s knees.

²⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I’m about to die. But God will surely take notice of you and will bring you up from this land to the land that He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” ²⁵ Then Joseph made Israel’s sons swear an oath saying, “When God takes notice of you, you will bring my bones up from here.”

²⁶ So Joseph died at 110 years old, and they embalmed him and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

David’s Last Instructions

2 Now when the time of David drew near to die, he charged his son Solomon, saying: ² “I—I am going the way of all the earth. So be strong^[a] and be a man. ³ Keep the charge of Adonai your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His decrees, according to what is written in the Torah of Moses, so that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn ⁴ so that Adonai may fulfill His word which He spoke concerning me, saying: ‘If your children watch their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’

⁵ “Moreover, you also know what Joab son of Zeruiah did to me—what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Jether, whom he killed, shedding the blood of war in peacetime, and putting the blood of war on his waistband and on his sandals on his feet. ⁶ So act according to your wisdom, and let his gray hair not go down to Sheol in shalom. ⁷ But show kindness to the sons of Barzillai the Gileadite, and let them be among those who eat at your table—for they befriended me when I fled from your brother Absalom. ⁸ Also behold, you have with you Shimei son of Gera, the Benjamite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by Adonai saying: ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ ⁹ Now don’t let him go unpunished. For you are a wise man, and you will know how to deal with him, and bring his gray hair down to Sheol with blood.”

¹⁰ Then David slept with his fathers^[b] and was buried in the city of David. ¹¹ The days that David reigned over Israel were forty years—seven years he reigned in Hebron and 33 years he reigned in Jerusalem. ¹² Then Solomon sat upon the throne of his father David, and his kingdom was established firmly.

Greetings

1 Peter, an emissary of Messiah Yeshua,

To the sojourners of the Diaspora in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia—chosen ² according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, set apart by the Ruach for obedience and for sprinkling with the blood^[a] of Yeshua the Messiah:

May grace and shalom be multiplied to you.

A Message of Living Hope

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah! In His great mercy He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Messiah Yeshua from the dead. ⁴ An incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading inheritance has been reserved in heaven for you. ⁵ By trusting, you are being protected by God’s power for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ You rejoice in this greatly, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials. ⁷ These trials are so that the true metal^[b] of your faith (far more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire) may come to light in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Messiah Yeshua. ⁸ Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you don’t see Him now, you trust Him and are filled with a joy that is glorious beyond words, ⁹ receiving the outcome of your faith—the salvation of your souls.