Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 1. One told Joseph, Behold, thy father is sick] He was ill before, and Joseph knew it; but it appears that a messenger had been now despatched to in form Joseph that his father was apparently at the point of death.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-7 - The death-beds of believers, with the prayers and counsels of dyin persons, are suited to make serious impressions upon the young, the gay, and the prosperous: we shall do well to take children on suc occasions, when it can be done properly. If the Lord please, it is very desirable to bear our dying testimony to his truth, to his faithfulness, and the pleasantness of his ways. And one would wish s to live, as to give energy and weight to our dying exhortations. All true believers are blessed at their death, but all do not depar equally full of spiritual consolations. Jacob adopted Joseph's tw sons. Let them not succeed their father, in his power and grandeur i Egypt; but let them succeed in the inheritance of the promise made to Abraham. Thus the aged dying patriarch teaches these young persons to take their lot with the people of God. He appoints each of them to be the head of a tribe. Those are worthy of double honour, who, throug God's grace, break through the temptations of worldly wealth an preferment, to embrace religion in disgrace and poverty. Jacob wil have Ephraim and Manasseh to know, that it is better to be low, and in the church, than high, and out of it.
Original Hebrew ויהי1961 אחרי310 הדברים1697 האלה428 ויאמר559 ליוסף3130 הנה2009 אביך1 חלה2470 ויקח3947 את853 שׁני8147 בניו1121 עמו5973 את853 מנשׁה4519 ואת853 אפרים׃669
