Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 5. And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh - are mine] I now adopt them into my own family, and they shall have their place among my twelve sons, and be treated in every respect as those, and have an equal interest in all the spiritual and temporal blessings of the covenant.
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 ועתה6258 שׁני8147 בניך1121 הנולדים3205 לך בארץ776 מצרים4714 עד5704 באי935 אליך413 מצרימה4714 לי הם1992 אפרים669 ומנשׁה4519 כראובן7205 ושׁמעון8095 יהיו׃1961
