“About Joseph He said…
May the Lord bless his land
with the precious dew from heaven above
and with the deep waters that lie below;
with the best the sun brings forth
and the finest the moon can yield;
with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains
and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills;
with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness
and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush.
Let all these rest on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of the prince among his brothers.”
-Deuteronomy 33:13-16
Alrighty next up is the blessings of Joseph or to be technically accurate the blessings of the Joseph tribes which are Ephraim and Manesseh.
Actually, we can tell what the nature of the blessings for the Joseph tribes are by simply going to the original Hebrew.
YOSEF means “may he increase” and EPHRAIM means “God has made me fertile”.
And true to their names, the Joseph tribes were blessed with much fruitfulness and increase.
In those days when agriculture was everything, fruitfulness was measured by an abundance of rain and water.
Hence the phrase…“with the precious dew from heaven above” which is referring to the God-sent rain.
Notice also the consistent use of the word “best” and other synonymous terms.
The original Hebrew is MEGED and honestly in this context it is probably best (no pun intended) to render it as “bounty” or “abundance” in English.
Onward.
“The deep waters that lie below” is referring to all of the underground springs and fountains.
And they’re ain’t anything cryptic about the next phrase “with the best the sun brings forth”.
Obviously just as an abundance of rain is needed to grow crops, so too is an abundance of sun a necessity.
It’s been said that the Holy Land receives as much sun as to be able to produce four crops annually.
One thing I’ll never forget when I visited Israel during the summer month of August was that it never rained for the whole 14 days I was there.
This is quite unlike Tokyo (where I live now) when I couldn’t even recall a whole week going by without it raining.
Next we have the phrase “and the finest the moon can yield“.
Okay, now that’s actually pretty cryptic.
What in the world does that mean?
Again, we have to look at things from an agricultural perspective.
This is referring to the fact that in those days the months and seasons were measured by the phases of the moon coming and going.
Finally, we come to this fascinating tidbit:
“with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains
and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills;
with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness”.
This is referring to the best of all the natural resources to be found in the mountains and the hills.
I’m talking about trees, rare metals, a variety of wood, limestone and even different types of food.
Finally the blessing closes with the statement that all of this fruitfulness and bounty is to rest on the head of Joseph (again represented by Ephraim and Manasseh) who is to be a ruling prince among his brothers.
One quick reminder before I close.
Keep in mind that it is freakin’ super duper important that you understand the Joseph’s position as represented by Ephraim and Manasseh…
…AND…
…the position of Judah.
Got it homies?
Because if you don’t understand their positions, you’re pretty much screwed when it comes to properly understanding prophecy and a ton of other key verses in the New Testament.
I’ve mentioned this before but just to make sure it sticks I’m gonna teach this to you one more time right here and right now.
Don’t worry because this will take less than two minutes.
FIRST, understand that the firstborn blessing was split in half between Joseph and Judah.
SECOND, understand that the firstborn blessing was comprised of two parts.
The first part was the power and authority to rule over Israel
The second part was receiving twice as much material wealth compared to what the rest of the brothers received.
Again, that’s why it was called the “Double-portion” blessing.
THIRD, when Jacob split up the firstborn blessing and gave the authority to rule over Israel to Judah and the double-portion of the wealth to Joseph, understand he was breaking a major and very firmly entrenched Middle Eastern custom.
When Jacob did this the brothers were probably scratching their heads and saying to themselves “What in the hell is he doing?“
FOURTH, understand that because the double-portion of the blessing was assigned to Joseph’s two sons (Ephraim and Manasseh), this resulted in their status being instantly elevated to an equal level with Jacob’s sons even though biologically speaking they were really Jacob’s grandchildren.
Now tuck away what you’ve just learned in your back pocket because you’re gonna need this information in the future and when you read the NT.
We’ll continue our discussion of the Joseph tribes the next time we meet.
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