Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 01 Sep. 2019
In the last sermon, we recounted Abraham and Isaac’s faith in the matter of God’s testing, believing so firmly in God’s promises of descendants and so firmly in God’s power to raise the dead, that they stood willing to sacrifice, out of obedience to God, every blessing they enjoyed.
In Hebrews 11:20-22, we have faith exemplified that impacts the future. Three generations of Abraham’s descendants are listed in rapid-fire succession: Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, each one expressing faith on their deathbeds in the form of words to the next generation. Let’s examine each of the three generations and see how their faith in God led them to bless and inspire faith in their children and grandchildren.
In the original Greek text the phrase “concerning impending events/ things to come in the future” immediately follows the phrase “With/by faith” [Πίστει περὶ μελλόντων]. This indicates the nature of this faith was to believe in what God had said was going to happen before it happened. God had promised certain things to Abraham and Isaac, things which had not come to pass yet, which enabled Isaac to confidently predict what would happen to his children.
God had promised to his father Abraham in Genesis 12:2&3 “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (NKJV)
Then God repeated the promise to Isaac: Genesis 26:3-4 “Dwell in this land [Canaan], and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed1” (NKJV)
Also, concerning Esau’s subservience, the LORD said to his wife Rachel: ‘Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.’" (Gen. 25:23 NKJV)
Isaac stumbled in his faith on this point. Instead of accepting God’s word on this, he tried to give the blessing of the firstborn to his older son, Esau. But he was stymied by the intrigues of his wife. Then we see God’s grace for a man who was weak in faith but came back to true faith in the end.
As soon as Isaac realized how God had sovereignly overridden him so that his younger son would get the blessing of the firstborn, “he trembled exceedingly,” then said, “Well, I have blessed him [speaking of Isaac], so he shall indeed be blessed.”
The great Puritan commentator, Matthew Henry wrote, “Now, the faith of Isaac thus prevailing over his unbelief, it has pleased the God of Isaac to pass by the weakness of his faith, to commend the sincerity of it, and record him among the elders, who through faith have obtained a good report.”
This gives hope to all of us who aren’t perfectly consistent in our faith either! Come back to it, and God will pick up where you left off!
To Jacob he said, "...God give you Of the dew of heaven, Of the fatness of the earth, And plenty of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you, And nations bow down to you. Be master over your brethren, And let your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, And blessed be those who bless you!" (Genesis 27:28-29, NKJV)
Dew was an important source of water in arid climates, and furthermore, this could have been a prophecy of the manna which God provided his descendants for a time, which was strongly associated with the dew in Ex. 16:13-14, Num. 11:9, & Dt. 32:2.
The “fatness of the earth” appears to have been coined by Isaac, and the phrase only occurs in the Bible to describe the rich produce – particularly olive oil – in Caanan2, so it seems to be related to Isaac’s faith in God’s promise to give them that land.
God had promised the land of ten Canaanite nations to Abraham at the end of Genesis 15, so it is possible that Isaac also inferred that a descendant of Abraham would conquer all those peoples such that they would bow to him3, but really this prophecy would only come to fruition later on, in the reign of Jesus – the acme of Jacob’s descendants, before whom every knee will bow.
The power to bless and curse is also divine. It implies God being with you to make blessings come to pass and to deflect curses back upon maledictors. Blessing to those who bless and cursing to those who curse was a promise which God had made only to Abraham, yet Isaac is commended for exercising faith in believing that God would be with his son in the same special way.
To his other son Esau he said: "Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high. By your sword you shall live, And you shall serve your brother; but when you become restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck." (Gen 27:39-40, ESV)
With these words, Isaac, with faith in God, passed along the hard news to his favorite son of what God had revealed to him of his sons splitting into to separate nations who would not live in harmony but would rather engage in topsy-turvy contests of strength resulting in bouts of servitude.
This became generally true of Esau’s descendants, the nation of Edom. They lived in a dry, rocky, desert area to the southeast “away from” the Promised Land.
They fought time and time again with Israel, occasionally winning dominance and independence, only to be overcome by disaster: David conquered the Red Sea seaports of Elath and Ezion Geber from Edom(2 Sam. 8:14; 1 Kings 9:26), and Saul also made conquests against the Edomites early in his reign (1 Sam. 14:47). Then they revolted (1 Kings 11:14), but "Jehoshaphat of Judah reduced the Edomites in 897 B.C., dethroning their king for a deputy from Jerusalem... Amaziah of Judah killed many thousands in the Valley of Salt near the Dead Sea, and took Selah and afterward Joktheel (2 Kings 14:7)... But When Israel and Judah declined, Edom "broke off Israel's yoke" ... in Jehoram's reign (2 Kings 8:20-22), re-conquered their lost cities and invaded southern Judah (2 Chr. 28:17). Edom also joined the Chaldaeans against the Jews (Ps. 137:7)" in Nebuchadnezzar’s overthrow of Jerusalem in 586 BC. During the intertestamental time, Judas Maccabaeus and John Hyrcanus re-conquered Edom and annexed it to Judah, then the combined province came under Roman rule. Some of the last descendants of Esau were the Herods who tried to kill the baby Jesus in Bethlehem, and who tried Jesus before he was crucified. They then disappeared from history when Titus conquered the province in 70AD. ~Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By trusting God’s word to be true and even making logical inferences in the application of God’s word to his children, Isaac exercised faith in God.
“…he had nothing in that land but the right of burial. Then strange seemed these high titles, ‘Let people serve thee, and tribes bow down to thee,’ (Ge 27:29); for what dominion could he have given who himself was hardly a free man? We hence see that this blessing depended on faith; for Isaac had nothing which he could have bestowed on his children but the word of God.” ~John Calvin, AD 1551
The blessings upon Isaac didn’t come to fruition in his lifetime. So he had to trust God and inspire the next generation to trust God to fulfill His promises of blessing.
What’s the main promise mentioned in the N. T. ? The presence of the Holy Spirit!
Luke 24:49 “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high." (cf. Acts 1:4)
Acts 2:33 ‘Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear... 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’" (NKJV)
We can confidently assert to our children that the Lord will send the Holy Spirit to bless all whom God calls into relationship with Himself.
And while it is Biblically normative for that blessing to fall upon the children of believers, this is not to say that faith is genetic or that God’s blessings are automatically inherited. No, each generation has to trust in God for themselves, and so, just as Isaac had to trust God and wait to see the fulfillments to God’s promises, so his son Jacob had to learn to do that too.
“[Jacob] spent all his time in servitude and working as a hireling, and [amid] dangers, and plots, and deceits, and fears; and when he was asked by Pharaoh, he says, “Few and evil have my days been” (Gen. 47:9); while [Esau] lived in independence and great security, and afterwards was an object of terror to [Jacob]. Where then did the blessings come to their accomplishment, save in the [world] to come?” ~John Chrysostom, AD 400
Genesis 48:1-20 “Now it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told, "Indeed your father is sick"; and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. And Jacob was told, "Look, your son Joseph is coming to you"; and Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed. Then Jacob said to Joseph: "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan [recorded in Genesis 28 – the ladder dream] and blessed me, and said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people, and give this land to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.' ... Then Israel saw Joseph's sons, and said, ‘Who are these?’ Joseph said to his father, ‘They are my sons, whom God has given me in this place.’ And he said, ‘Please bring them to me, and I will bless them.’ ... And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel's left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel's right hand, and brought them near him. Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. 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 to this day, The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; Let my name be named upon them, And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.’ Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. And Joseph said to his father, ‘Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.’ But his father refused and said, ‘I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.’ So he blessed them that day, saying, ‘By you Israel will bless, saying, “May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!”’” [later, when Jacob met with his 12 sons and blessed them, he continued with his blessings upon Joseph's children:] Genesis 49:22-26 "Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a well; His branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, Shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, And the arms of his hands were made strong By the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel), By the God of your father who will help you, And by the Almighty who will bless you With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of your father Have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers." (NKJV)
Only by faith that God would really give his descendants the land of Canaan, as He had promised Abraham, Isaac, and himself, could Jacob dare to bequeath to his grandsons land in Canaan which didn’t belong to him! John Calvin commented, “Jacob... assigned to [Ephraim and Manasseh] two portions, as though he was now the Lord of that land, from which famine had driven him away. This wasn't reasonable; rather, faith ruled supreme.”
Perhaps it was a little easier for a man with 12 sons to forecast that they would “grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth,” but this was also by faith in the promise which had given him to make his descendants as “widespread” as “the dust of the earth” (Gen 28:14).
That’s why he could also prophesy that the wombs and breasts of Joseph’s descendants would be blessed.
And it came true: in the census taken several hundred years later in Numbers 2, Ephraim and Manasseh had 72,700 adult male descendants.
Later when they entered the promised land, Joshua recorded them as being too numerous to fit into a 1/12th section of Canaan, so they were given overflow space on the other side of the Jordan (Josh. 17:14).
Jacob also testified to his grandchildren that it was God who provided his food and God who protected him from evil. This is because he believed what God had told him all those years ago as a young man, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go” (Gen. 28:15, NKJV) So he told his children, “the God of your father will help you.”
Are you talking to your children and your grandchildren about God and telling them stories about what God has done for you? If you don’t incorporate this into your everyday conversation with them, how can you expect them to regard God themselves? Are you telling them about the share they can have in the promised land of heaven themselves - and about the fruitfulness of making disciples of all the nations?
The last word in Hebrew [מטה], depending on its pointing could be translated either “furniture” or “cane.”
Where it occurs in Gen. 47:31, most English versions translate it “bed,” describing an incident prior to the blessing of Joseph’s sons, where Jacob made Joseph swear not to bury his body in Egypt when he died.4
Perhaps that action was understood to be a posture that Jacob often took and was assumed to be the position he took afterward as well when blessing Ephraim & Manasseh5.
The staff may have been mentioned to explain how an elderly man bowed when he was too stiff to get down on the ground to bow, bending partway over and using his cane underneath him for support.6
I think it was Jacob’s final acceptance of the validity of Joseph’s boyhood dream, given by God, that his father and brothers would bow down to him. His brothers had already bowed before him in Egypt when they came to beg for food, but this is the first time his father bowed before him, and since the proper thing was for the son to bow to his father at such a time, it was making a powerful statement that God was right all along for the ancient father to bow before his son instead. 7
The word for “bow” and the word for “worship” are the same word in both Greek and Hebrew, so some English translations render this word “bowed” and others translate it “worshipped,” and there is no reason Jacob couldn’t have made a bow toward Joseph as an act of worship to God with a heart to affirm that God’s promises in regard to Joseph had already come true and therefore all God’s promises which were yet to be fulfilled were just as true and worth waiting for.
Meanwhile, Joseph had been doing a lot of waiting and trusting in the Lord as a slave in Egypt before his dramatic installation as prime minister. This matured his faith and he sought to encourage the same faith in future generations:
Here’s the Scriptural account referenced from Genesis 50:24-26, "And Joseph spoke to his brethren, saying, ‘I die8, and God will surely visit you, and will bring you out9 of this land to the land concerning which God sware to our fathers, Abraam, Isaac, and Jacob.’ And Joseph adjured10 the sons of Israel, saying, ‘At the visitation with which God shall visit you, then ye shall carry up my bones hence with you.’ And Joseph died, aged an hundred and ten years; and they prepared his corpse, and put him in a coffin in Egypt11.” (Brenton)
God had promised Abraham back in Genesis 15: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” (Genesis 15:13-14, NKJV)
And God had also promised Jacob that his family would leave Egypt one day, saying, "I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up again…" (Genesis 46:2-4, NKJV)
But the Exodus was still 150 years into the future when Jacob’s son, Joseph recalled the promise of it on his deathbed. With faith, he believed God’s promise and pointed his family toward it, even though he had not seen it yet, such that when the time came, Moses carried Joseph’s bones out of Egypt (Ex. 13:9), and Joshua carried them into the Promised Land where they were buried (Josh. 24:32).
Joseph could have could have had anything he wanted as the most powerful actor in the greatest nation in the world at his time. He could have ordered the biggest and most fabulous tombs and pyramids prepared for his burial. Yet he didn’t; he said he wanted his bones carried up to Canaan when the Israelites moved back. WHY? Because he believed God’s promise that Abraham’s descendants would eventually obtain possession of the promised land and because, as a man who understood his role as a leader of people, he wanted to inspire his people to also believe God would bring them back.
“[W]ealth, luxuries, and honors, made not the holy man to forget the promise, nor detained him in Egypt; and this was an evidence of no small faith. For whence had he so much greatness of mind, as to look down on whatever was elevated in the world, and to esteem as nothing whatever was precious in it, except that he had ascended up into heaven. In ordering his bones to be exported, he had no regard to himself, as though his grave in the land of Canaan would be sweeter or better than in Egypt; but his only object was to sharpen the desire of his own nation, that they might more earnestly aspire after redemption; he wished also to strengthen their faith, so that they might confidently hope that they would be at length delivered.” ~John Calvin
One of the greatest promises we have as Christians is that of the return of Jesus to destroy this world of sin and make it right and new (2 Peter 3).
Christians have clung dearly to that promise for almost two thousand years without seeing its fulfillment. Scores of generations of Christians parents have passed on to their children the hope that maybe they will be the privileged ones who get to see Jesus descend from heaven with a shout and see all the angels of God with him (1 Thess. 4:16, Matt. 25:31).
We may never see that day in our lifetime, but by faith we point our children to the glorious hope of His appearing.
We do that by “making mention” of it, just like Joseph did and just like the other patriarchs mentioned in Hebrews 11:13-16 "Faithful throughout, all these guys died, not having received the things promised, but rather, having seen and welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that that they are foreigners and pilgrims upon the earth. Now, those who say such things bring to light that they are eagerly seeking a fatherland. Furthermore, if indeed they had been bringing to mind the one from which they had gone out, they'd be making occasion to double-back. But, for the time being, a better one is what they long for – that is, a heavenly one..." (NAW)
Joseph ordered his bones to be buried in the promised land because he wanted to make a statement that he found his identity in God’s promises, not in his place of residence and work.
What actions in regards to your remains and your estate would be consistent with your belief that earth is not your home?
Also we have promises regarding Jesus’ salvation: “God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16)
Are we reminding our children that Jesus saves and encouraging them to trust in Him for everlasting life? (1Jn 2:12 “I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake.”)
We must also bring these promises to mind for ourselves so that we can finish strong in the faith: “Have we a faith which will support us amid the frailties of age, amid the debilities or the agonies of dissolving nature? … Let us now, by seeking clear, distinct, extended views of Christian truth and its evidence, ‘lay up a good foundation for the time to come, that we may lay hold on eternal life.’ ... It is the faith of the Gospel, and that alone, which can enable the expiring mortal to exult in the dissolution of ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle,’ and say, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’” ~John Brown of Edinborough, AD 1862
Greek NT |
NAW |
KJV |
20 Πίστει B περὶ μελλόντων εὐλόγησεν ᾿Ισαὰκ τὸν ᾿Ιακὼβ καὶ τὸν ᾿Ησαῦ. |
20 With faith about impending things, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. |
20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. |
21 Πίστει ᾿Ιακὼβ ἀποθνῄσκων ἕκαστον τῶν υἱῶν ᾿Ιωσὴφ εὐλόγησε, καὶ προσεκύνησεν ἐπὶC τὸ ἄκρον τῆς ῥάβδου αὐτοῦD. |
21 With faith, Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and bowed over the tip of his cane. |
21
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed
|
22 Πίστει ᾿Ιωσὴφ τελευτῶν περὶ τῆς ἐξόδου τῶν υἱῶν ᾿Ισραὴλ ἐμνημόνευσεE καὶ περὶ τῶν ὀστέων αὐτοῦ ἐνετείλατο. |
22 With faith, Joseph, when he was reaching the end, remembered about the emmigration of the children of Israel and gave orders about his bones. |
22 By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. |
1Under the universal rule of Jesus, the singular “seed” (as the Apostle Paul pointed out in Galatians 3), “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,” and God’s promise to Isaac is fulfilled.
2Num. 13:20; Deut. 8:8; 32:13; 1 Chr. 4:40; Neh. 9:35; Ezek. 27:17
3Or perhaps he could have inferred it from God’s promise in Gen. 17:4 to Abraham the “father of many nations” in the sense of filial reverence from many branches of a family tree.
4Despite the similarities in phrase, there is no contradiction, because two different occasions are described. The circumstances of the one are not necessarily ascribed to the other in Scripture and therefore cannot logically be forced upon the other by interpreters.
5Although perhaps, as Hughes suggested, it is an allusion to the event where he bade them swear earlier, conflating the two anachronistically.
6Thus Matthew Henry “He did this leaning on the top of his staff... intimating to us his great natural weakness, that he was not able to support himself so far as to sit up in his bed without a staff, and yet that he would not make this an excuse for neglecting the worshipping of God; he would do it as well as he could with his body, as well as with his spirit, though he could not do it as well as he would. He showed thereby his dependence upon God, and testified his condition here as a pilgrim with his staff, and his weariness of the world, and willingness to be at rest.”
7cf. Chrysostom: “He was even so confident about the future things, as to show it also by his act. For inasmuch as another King was about to arise from Ephraim, therefore it is said, ‘And he bowed himself upon the top of his staff.’ That is, even though he was now an old man, ‘he bowed himself” to Joseph, showing the obeisance of the whole people which was to be [directed] to him. And this indeed had already taken place, when his brethren ‘bowed down’ to him: but it was afterwards to come to pass through the ten tribes.” cf. Calvin: “He was therefore led by faith to submit himself to his son.” cf. John Brown: “testified his firm confidence in the promise… by worshipping, bending over his staff, which was necessary to support his now enfeebled frame.”
8The LXX is the indicative verb ἀποθνῄσκω. Hebrews 11:22 uses a synonym in participle form τελευτῶν. The Hebrew of Gen. 50:24 uses a participle מֵ֑ת, with a meaning closer to the Greek apothnesk-, but then when the same Hebrew verb is repeated (in vav consecutive imperfect form) in Gen. 50:26, the LXX renders it ἐτελεύτησεν.
9LXX ἀνάξει (“lead you up”)/ MT הֶעֱלָ֤ה (“cause you to go up”)/compare to Heb. 11:22 ἐξόδου (“way out/emmigration/exodus”)
10LXX= ὥρκισεν ("took oath"), MT = יַּשְׁבַּ֣ע ("Cause to swear") Compare to Heb. 11:22 ἐνετείλατο (“commanded”)
11"Joseph's coffin, the Jews say (T. Bab. Sota, fol. 13. 1), was put into the river Nile; and so says Patricides (Apud Hottinger. Smegma Oriental. l. 1. c. 8. p. 379), an Arabic writer: others say it was in the buryingplace of the kings, until it was taken up and removed by Moses." ~John Gill, AD 1766
AThe
Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority
of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript
evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes
notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but
since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online
document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a
standalone difference from all other English translations of a
certain word. Strikeout usually indicates that the
English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the range of
meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a
Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word
translated as an English singular. [Brackets] indicate words added
in English not in the Greek. Key words are colored consistently
across the chart to show correlations.
BThree of the five first-millennium Greek manuscripts insert the conjunction kai here, as do another dozen Greek manuscripts in the second millennium, but the overall majority of Greek manuscripts do not have the conjunction, and I lean toward the traditional text without the conjunction, although, it makes no real difference in meaning, serving only to reinforce the beginning of a new sentence or to express similarity to the previous patriarch’s faith, and both of those concepts are already deducible from the context.
CThe Vulgate translation negligently omitted this preposition which is in all the Greek manuscripts, resulting in the practice of acts of obeisance to sticks! Speaking of which, P.E. Hughes in his 1977 commentary on Hebrews, mentioned a rabbinical tradition that this staff had been handed down from father to son since the time of Adam and was the same one Moses used.
DThe last phrase matches (with the omission of one word) a phrase from the LXX of Gen. 47:31, describing the attendant circumstances of an incident prior to the blessing of Joseph’s sons, where Jacob (called “Israel” in the LXX & in the Hebrew of Gen. 47:31) made Joseph swear not to bury his body in Egypt when he died. Perhaps that action was understood to be a posture he often took in his life and was assumed to be the position he took afterward as well when blessing Ephraim and Manasseh. The Masoretic text is different enough (“head” instead of “tip,” “couch” instead of “rod,” and the additional pronoun in the LXX referring to the staff) that the apostle seems to be quoting from the LXX rather than making his own version from the Hebrew, which readsוישׁתחו ישׂראל על־ראשׁ המטה׃. The last word in Hebrew, depending on its pointing could be translated either “couch/furniture/bed” or “staff/cane/rod/walking-stick.” Judges 6:21 also mentions the “tip” of a “staff” using the same Greek words, but that combination of words occurs nowhere else in the Greek Bible.
EGenesis 50 records Joseph giving orders concerning his bones after prophesying of the Exodus of the children of Israel.