When Joseph saw that his father was placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head, he thought it wrong; so he took hold of his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s. ‘Not so, father’, Joseph said to his father, ‘for the other is the first born; place your right hand on his head’.” (Genesis  48:17-18)

In this resplendent canvas painting, Jacob blesses Joseph’s two sons Ephraim and Manasseh before his death. As in the biblical rendition, Jacob crosses his hands, giving the primary blessing to the younger son Ephraim. This is the final example of the reversal of primogeniture, a recurrent theme in Genesis. Unlike the biblical rendition, Joseph does not interrupt Jacob by attempting to place his right hand on the head of the elder son Manasseh. Joseph and his wife Asnath have an air of serenity and contentment.

The value of parental blessing of children is attested from the beginning of biblical times. We find Noah blessing Shem and Japheth (Genesis 9:26-27),  Isaac blessing Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27 and 28:1-4), and Jacob blessing his two Egyptian grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

What is unusual about the blessing of Jacob’s grandsons is that the Bible declares that it was their blessing would become the paradigmatic blessing of parents to children.

So he blessed them that day, saying, By you shall Israel invoke blessings saying: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. (Genesis 48:20)

What is somewhat perplexing is that long before the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh the Bible records a similar phenomenon. In Genesis 12:2 we are told that Abraham was blessed directly by God:

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you: I will make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.

Rabbi David Kimhi explains the thrust of the last promise:

He told him: you shall have such abundant blessing and prosperity that you shall be the standard for others by which blessing will be evoked. When one will bless his son he will say, May the Lord bless you with the blessings of Abraham.

Why then did Abraham not become the standard of blessing? Why was that role was given to Jacob’s Egyptian grandsons? 

The issue becomes all the more puzzling when one recalls the naming of Joseph’s two sons. Manasseh received his name, ‘For  God has made me forget all my tribulations and the house of my father.’ As for Ephraim, his name is explained, ‘For God has made me bear fruit in the land of my misery.’

Their names reflect the painful degree of alienation experienced by Joseph during his many years of travail. Although this would certainly explain why Joseph was desirous of his father’s blessing and acceptance of his sons, it is less likely to provide the explanation as to why Manasseh and Ephraim became the prototype of blessing.

Dr. Devora Steinmetz explains:

Manasseh and Ephraim had been born outside of the patriarchal family; Joseph had tried to forget his father’s house, and the names of his sons reflect that separation…Both Jacob and Joseph had children in exile, before they were reunited with their fathers. Jacob recognizes the fulfillment of his promise of increase in the sons born to Joseph under the same circumstances under which Jacob’s sons were born to him.

In this reading Jacob’s grandsons are the fulfillment of the long-awaited divine promise. Jacob’s hopes for divine blessing had been dashed by the death of Rachel and the kidnapping of Joseph. The grandsons of Jacob were the tikkun, the corrective measure, as it were, the revitalization of blessing.

Rabbi Moshe Zvi Nerya offers an alternate explanation. All of Jacob’s other children and grandchildren grew up in the land of Israel.  They were a closed circuit, all drawing their spiritual sustenance from the tradition of Jacob’s hearth and home. Ephraim and Manasseh were children of the Diaspora. Joseph’s challenge was to instill the values of his father’s home into his children raised on foreign soil, in alien surroundings, in the royal court. He shared with them his deep and meaningful memories of the old country and of his father’s household. He cultivated in them yearning for family ties and traditions. Manasseh and Ephraim had this enthusiasm and longing uniquely instilled within them.

It was that degree of enthusiasm that Jacob recognized when he established them as the encapsulation of blessing which Jewish parents in every generation bestow upon their children: May you be like Ephraim and Manasseh. May you long for the fulfillment of that which you lack; may you be infused with the dream of returning home and the intense desire to forge an unbreakable link with your cherished family heritage.

1. Rabbi David Kimhi, know as Radak (1160-1235) was a grammarian and biblical exegete from Narbonne Provence.

2. Dr. Devorah Steinmetz, From Father to Son; Kinship, Conflict and Continuity in Genesis (Kentucky, 1991), p. 129.

3. Rabbi Moshe Zvi Nerya, Ner LaMaor (Ohr Etzion, 2001), pp. 154-155.