Genesis 47:28-50:26

Jubilee Bible 2000

²⁸ And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the whole age of Jacob was one hundred forty-seven years.

²⁹ And the time drew nigh that Israel must die; and he called his son Joseph and said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh and deal with me in mercy and truth; do not bury me, I pray thee, in Egypt;

³⁰ but I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their buryingplace. And he said, I will do as thou hast said.

³¹ And he said, Swear unto me. And he swore unto him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head.

48 ¶ And it came to pass after these things that it was told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

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

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

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

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

⁶ And those whom thou hast begotten after them shall be thine and shall be called after the name of their brethren in their inheritance.

⁷ Because when I came from Padanaram, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan in the way when yet there was but a little way to come unto Ephrath; and I buried her there in the way of Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.

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

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

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

¹¹ And Israel said unto Joseph, I had not thought to see thy face, and, behold, God has showed me also thy seed.

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

¹³ 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.

¹⁴ Then 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 with understanding; for Manasseh was the firstborn.

¹⁵ And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long unto this day,

¹⁶ the Angel who frees me from all evil, bless these young men, 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.

¹⁷ Then Joseph seeing 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.

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

¹⁹ 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 Gentiles.

²⁰ And 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.

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

²² Moreover 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.

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

² Gather yourselves together and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father.

³ Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, principal in dignity, and the principal in power.

⁴ Unstable as water, thou shalt not be principal because thou didst go up to thy father’s bed; then thou became defiled, going up to my couch.

⁵ ¶ Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of injustice are their weapons.

⁶ Let my soul not enter into their secret; nor let my honour join their assembly; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their own will they dug down a wall.

⁷ Cursed be their anger, which is strong, and their wrath, which is hard; I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

⁸ ¶ Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.

⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up; he stooped down, he couched as a lion and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

¹⁰ The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

¹¹ Binding his foal unto the vine and his ass’s colt unto the choice roots; he washed his garments in wine and his covering in the blood of grapes;

¹² His eyes red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

¹³ ¶ Zebulun shall dwell at the port of the sea; and he shall be for a port of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens;

¹⁵ and he saw that rest was good and the land that it was pleasant and bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant unto tribute.

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

¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

¹⁸ I have waited for thy saving health, O LORD.

¹⁹ Gad, an army shall invade him, but he shall invade at the last.

²⁰ Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield delight unto the king.

²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose, who shall give forth a good word.

²² ¶ Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a fountain, whose daughters run over the wall.

²³ The arches have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him;

²⁴ but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty one of Jacob; from there did the stone of Israel shepherd,

²⁵ by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the deep that lies under, with blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶ The blessings of thy father were greater than the blessings of my progenitors; unto the borders of the eternal hills they shall be upon the head of Joseph and on the crown of the Nazarite of his brethren.

²⁷ Benjamin, ravening wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the spoil.

²⁸ ¶ All these were the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke unto them and blessed them; each one according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹ And 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,

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

³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife; and there I buried Leah.

³² The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the sons of Heth.

³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and expired and was gathered unto his people.

50 ¶ Then Joseph fell upon his father’s face and wept upon him and kissed him.

² And Joseph commanded his slaves, the physicians, to embalm his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel.

³ And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed; and the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

⁴ And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke unto those of the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

⁵ My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die; in my grave which I have dug 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.

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

⁷ ¶ Then Joseph went up to bury his father, and with him went up all the slaves of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

⁸ and all the house of Joseph and his brethren and his father’s house; only their little ones and their sheep and their cows, they left in the land of Goshen.

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

¹⁰ And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation; and Joseph made a mourning for his father seven days.

¹¹ And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a great mourning of the Egyptians; therefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

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

¹³ for 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 from Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.

¹⁴ And 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.

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

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

¹⁷ So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren and their sin, for they did unto thee evil; and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the slaves of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spoke unto him.

¹⁸ And his brethren also went and fell down before his face, and they said, Behold, we are thy slaves.

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

²⁰ But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God thought it out unto good, to bring to pass that which we see this day, to give life to many people.

²¹ Now therefore fear ye not; I will nourish you and your little ones. Thus he comforted them and spoke to their heart.

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

²³ And Joseph saw Ephraim’s sons unto the third generation; the sons also of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.

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

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

²⁶ So Joseph died, being one hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him, and he was put in an ark in Egypt.