Day #29

Sermon - Audio
Gen 48-50 - Audio
Gen 48-50 - Daily Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

• 48.5: Jacob adopts Joseph's two sons. In doing so he gives a double portion of the inheritance to Joseph which is in line with the blessings given to the firstborn.
• 48.6: We don't know if Joseph has other sons.
• 48.8: Some believe that Jacob's poor eyesight keeps him from recognizing Joseph's sons, but it may be that since we are moving into a ceremony of blessings that these words are part of a formal ceremony.
• 48.19: God's pattern has been to choose the younger over the older. Ephraim will eventually be used as another name for the northern 10 tribes.
• 48.22: Jacob continues to favor Joseph even at this late stage by giving him something that he does not give to the other brothers.

• Why do you think God often chooses the younger over the older?

• 49.4: Reuben's loss of preeminence is seen in Ephraim being the leading tribe of the northern kingdom.
• 49.5: Levi becomes the only tribe without land. Simeon is given land in the middle of Judah and eventually is swallowed up.
• 49.8ff: The promise of Judah's kingship and the hint that from Judah the Messiah will come.

• The words of Jacob point to what will happen more than 400 years later. Why does he give words that point so far into the future rather than giving words that have immediate application?

• 50.12: The sons of Jacob finally come together and follow the father's instructions.
• 50.15-21: The brother's fear that Joseph will make his dreams of years before a complete reality by enslaving them.
• 50.20: Joseph hold out that it is God's good providence that brought him to Egypt. While his brothers still see a smaller picture, Joseph recognizes the big picture and God's hand.
• 50.22: 110 years was the ideal life span in Egyptian thinking. The average life expectancy for a royal person at this time was 40-50 years.
• 50.26: Only Jacob and Joseph are embalmed according to the Biblical record. This embalming allowed them to be brought back to the promised land for burial. Although Jacob lived in that land for only 17 of his 110 years, he considered it his true home. It is an ironic twist that we Joseph's bones will be buried in Shechem, the very place that he began his journey that would take him out of the promised land as a slave (Joshua 24.32).