In the last years of Jacob's life, his thoughts turned to the future of his family, which was in temporary exile in Egypt but would one day return to the Promised Land. Expressing his faith in God's promises, he arranged to be buried with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah at the cave of Machpelah (Gen 47:29-31). This scene at the end of Gen 47 reminds us of Abraham's conversation with his servant at the beginning of Gen 24.
Genesis 48 describes a formal blessing ceremony involving Jacob, Joseph, and Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh. It is natural to compare this scene with the one in Gen 27. This time there was no deception involved. Jacob, like Isaac, had reduced physical eyesight, but unlike Isaac, he had clear "spiritual eyesight".
Jacob decided to adopt Joseph's two sons as his own sons, in effect giving Joseph's descendants a "double portion" that traditionally went to a firstborn son (see 1 Chron 5:1-2). Rachel had died prematurely, and this was a way of increasing her "share" of Israel's future (Gen 48:1-7).
Initiating the blessing ceremony, Jacob asked for his grandsons to be identified by name (v 8). This is the meaning of his question, "Who are these?" We can contrast Gen 48:8 with Gen 27:32, where Isaac discovered that he had been deceived.
There is also a midrash suggesting that Jacob, given prophetic insight, looked into the future in wonderment at what he saw about the future of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and that this motivated him to say, "Who are these?" Certainly he was given some glimpse of the future, and this motivated his giving a greater blessing to Ephraim, the younger son, than to the older son Manasseh.
The future of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh included leadership in the apostate northern kingdom of Israel, which was conquered by Assyria in 722 BC and went into exile. In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on Jan 30, 2021, David Waddle noted that this exile was not the last word on the descendants of Joseph. Through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, the good shepherd (Gen 48:15; John 10), sins can be forgiven.
In his blessing of his grandsons, Jacob referred to God as "the angel who has redeemed me from all evil (v 16). There may be a reference here to the occasions when God manifested himself to Jacob in a physical form.
The final verse of Gen 48 has raised questions. Jacob mentioned that he was granting to Joseph a particular portion (Heb shekem) of land that he had taken "from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow" (v 22). One possibility is that Jacob was referring to Shechem. A midrash proposes that Jacob also participated in the slaughter at Shechem, although there is no mention of this in Gen 34. Certainly Jacob bore responsibility for what happened there, even if he wasn't directly involved. On the other hand, Jacob may have been referring to a different portion of land not previously mentioned in the narrative.
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