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Bible Reading Notes
March 2008
Thursday, March 27th – Genesis 48: 1
The dying of Jacob fills chapters 48 and 49. We might well wonder why Scripture devotes such detailed attention to the death of the patriarch. The answer is that Jacob had so much blessing to give to his descendants in his dying days. The Word of God tells us that the deaths of the godly are precious in the Lord's sight (Ps. 116:15). In their gain through death we have a token and sure prophecy of our gain that should comfort and encourage us to number our days and to live in wise, loving, and grateful devotion to our Lord (Ps. 90:12). It is no wonder, then, that the Bible not only tells us that the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning (Eccl. 7:4), but also sets our hearts and minds there in its full accounts of the fruitful deaths of God’s saints. This is so especially in the saving account of the death of our Savior, which is recorded at length in the four Gospels and commemorated in the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:26).
Friday, March 28th - Genesis 48: 1
This verse begins by telling us how Joseph received and responded to the report of his father’s sickness. The son who had been exalted as a ruler in Egypt does not excuse himself from spending time with his infirm father by saying that he was too busy with pressing affairs of state. Instead, he hastens to see his failing father. This visit was prompted by more than natural love and sympathy; Joseph was also prompted by the holy and loving determination to honor his father. We also are told that Joseph brought his two living sons to see his dying father. We are not told specifically why he did so, but we do know that between Jacob and Joseph there was ever a holy, loving concert to have and to share with others the blessings of God. While the dying patriarch was surely comforted by this visit from his favorite son and his grandsons, it is Joseph and his sons who are far more greatly blessed by the father who was greatly enriched by his faith in the living God.
Saturday, March 29th - Genesis 48: 2-4
In these verses we find that although Jacob is dying, yet he concerns himself with the glory of God and the good of others. Accordingly, he prepares himself to deliver his legacy to his sons. His is not the legacy that worldlings leave to their children, such as money and possessions. Instead, Jacob confers infinitely rich and eternal blessings upon his descendants. What does it matter if our children gain the whole world and have none of the spiritual blessings that we should leave to them?
Sunday, March 30th - Genesis 48: 2-4
The first thing that Jacob did when he was told that Joseph had come to him was to gather his failing strength in order to perform his final and greatest service for the blessing of his sons. Here grace in the old patriarch is seen to triumph over his natural infirmities. Although he is old and physically failing, Jacob gains new strength and mounts up with wings like an eagle (Is. 40:31), first to honor Joseph and his sons, then to honor the rest of his sons through his prophecy delivered to them in chapter 49. If we regard only the weakness and wounds of our outer man, we shall grow discouraged and fall as helpless and useless victims to our natural infirmities. Yet, if we by faith regard our God and His faithful dealings with us and ours, we shall be fountains of blessing for our brethren and descendants, even and especially in our weaknesses (Rom. 4:18-21; 2 Cor. 4:7, 10-18).
Monday, March 31st - Genesis 48: 2-4
This interview between Jacob and Joseph is no sentimental affair, but rather is a time of solemn and highly significant transaction. It is most significant that Joseph is the one of all of Jacob’s sons who is before him with his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. For Joseph came to Jacob prepared to receive the double blessing of the birthright. Such a blessing belonged to the first-born son. Although Joseph was almost the youngest son of Jacob, had Laban not tricked Jacob into marrying Leah, Joseph would actually have been his first-born son. Hence, we see in this transaction not only that the younger ascends above his older brothers, but also that in the final reckoning God makes right all that men sinfully have made wrong.
Tuesday, April 1st - Genesis 48: 2-4
In vv. 3,4, Jacob begins to speak to Joseph not about his pains but about the promises and blessings of his God. Here in the valley of the shadow of death, Jacob sees more clearly than he did in the brightness of Pharaoh’s court that his life was not bad and unpleasant (Gen. 47:9), but good and rich in divine blessing. While it was true that Jacob’s life had been full of trial, testing, and afflictions, the higher and prevailing truth was that his Almighty God had caused all of those things to work for his good and for the good of his descendants. Therefore, the first words out of Jacob’s mouth were not words of complaint about his hard lot, but rather words of grateful testimony that Almighty God had graciously, faithfully, and fully blessed him in magnificent fashion. Do we see the blessing of God in our lives and show it and seek to share it with our children?
Wednesday, April 2nd - Genesis 48: 2-4
Did the mighty blessing of the Lord manifest itself by giving to Jacob lands and riches and honor among men? No, Jacob rather defines his blessing in terms of his having divine promises, not in terms of his actual possession. God had promised Jacob the land of Canaan, but Jacob was dying in Egypt. God had promised Jacob a vast number of descendants, yet Jacob and his family numbered about 70 people at this point. Had the divine promise failed or was it misleading? John Calvin remarks on this: What, therefore, did it profit Joseph to be constituted, by an imaginary title, Lord of that land in which the donor of it was scarcely permitted to drink the very water he had dug for with great labor, and from which he was, at length, expelled by famine? But it hence appears with what firm faith the holy fathers relied upon the Word of the Lord, seeing they chose rather to depend upon His lips, than to possess a fixed habitation in the land. Jacob is dying in exile in Egypt; and meanwhile, calls away the governor of Egypt from his dignity into exile, that he may be well and happy. (Commentary on Genesis, p. 424).
Thursday, April 3rd - Genesis 3, 4
Jacob, who had by faith tasted the sweet and strong blessing of the Lord, who had fed more substantially upon the promises of God than he had upon the grain of Canaan or Egypt, was appreciative of his situation in Egypt but was not intoxicated by it. He rightly saw Egypt as God’s provisional blessing, while he regarded Canaan as the more sure earthly token of the eternal heavenly blessing of God. To that higher blessing Jacob calls Joseph and all who are by faith in the Lord descendants of Israel. If we rightly regard the truth that we have been blessed by our God in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:3), we shall not complain as we die but rather shall be grateful for such a glorious and living inheritance that is our gain through death (Phil. 1: 21; 1 Pet. 1:3-9).
Friday, April 4th - Genesis 48: 5, 6
In these verses Jacob is doing two distinct but inseparable things of great importance and significance. He first adopts Joseph’s sons as his own. By this act, Jacob makes the sons of Joseph, who had been born in Egypt, to be more intimately engaged with the covenant sons of Israel. The dying patriarch hereby serves to draw the interest and affections of these boys away from the rich and comfortable life they had known all of their days in Egypt. At the same time, he makes them to be full members of God’s covenant people and heirs of the incomparable blessings of the Lord. Hence we learn that a dying saint is more inclined and better able to convey to his children more enduring and glorious blessings than could a living Pharaoh give to them.
Saturday, April 5th - Genesis 48: 5, 6
The second thing that Jacob is doing in these verses is giving to Joseph the double portion of the birthright. Although Joseph’s name is not reckoned in the listings of the tribes of Israel, the fact is that Jacob’s favorite son has not been cut out of the covenant people, but rather Joseph has received a double portion in Israel through his sons. For Jacob not only adopts Joseph’s sons, but by his doing so he makes them each to be tribal heads, ranking equally with Joseph’s brothers. Thus, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were exalted in Egypt as Joseph’s sons, are even more highly exalted in Israel as Jacob’s sons. Their exaltation was due to their relation to Joseph, and they were regarded by Israel to be acceptable to him and to his other sons as was his beloved son, Joseph. Similarly, we have been accepted by our heavenly Father in His beloved Son (Eph. 1:6).
Sunday, April 6th - Genesis 48: 7
Jacob recalls how he had left Paddan-aram by the direction of God, in order to return to Canaan. As he had obeyed God and left the land of his marriages and of the birth of all of his children (except Benjamin) in order to return with his family to the Promised Land, so Joseph should now be willing to devote his sons, and those sons should be willing to devote themselves, to leave Egypt to go to Canaan when the Lord called them to do so. When that time did come—hundreds of years later—Joseph would be returned to the Promised Land in a coffin, and his sons would go to Canaan through their descendants.
Monday, April 7th - Genesis 48: 7
Jacob also mentions the death of his beloved wife, Rachel, and his consequent great sorrow. By this notice there is blessing for Jacob as well as for his sons. The blessing for Jacob was that his separation from his beloved Rachel was nearly over. He was conscious of his death being the gain of his gathering together with all of his loved ones who had already passed through the portal to eternal life (Gen. 49:29). Therefore, his own tears from that great sorrow would soon be dried. There is also blessing alluded to in the place of Rachel’s death, though neither Jacob nor his sons at that time knew it. She had died on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, the site of the birth of the Savior, great David’s greater Son. Whether we live or die, if we are headed toward the Savior, we are blessed more than we may realize amidst all the cost and trials along that way.
Tuesday, April 8th - Genesis 48: 8, 9
In the opening verses of chapter 48, Jacob has been dealing directly with his favorite son, Joseph. The solemn transactions of the dying patriarch also had great and lasting effect upon Joseph’s first two sons. By those transactions, Jacob was disengaging Joseph and his sons from the exalted life and pleasures they had known in Egypt, and charging them to cleave to the Lord and His gracious and glorious blessing. In vv.8-22, Jacob focuses his blessing directly upon the two sons of Joseph in ratification of his adoption of those sons and in confirmation of the double portion of the birthright that Jacob gives to Joseph in his sons. Great and precious riches flow from faith to faith at the death of a faithful saint.
Wednesday, April 9th - Genesis 48: 8-10
The infirmity of Jacob is noted in v.10 where we are told that his eyesight was very poor. But his faith had not failed him, as is evident by Scripture referring to him once again as Israel. His eyes enabled him to see two other persons with Joseph, and Israel inquires as to their identity. The word of Joseph indicates them to be his sons whom Israel had just adopted as his own. Israel accepted the true word of Joseph in order rightly to bless his sons, contrary to the way in which Jacob had sinfully exploited his own father’s failed eyesight in order to snatch the double blessing so many years prior to this time.
Thursday, April 10th - Genesis 48: 8-10
Israel could not at this time see his two newly adopted sons, but he could and did embrace them. His solemn adoption of Joseph’s sons was no mere legal or dutiful obligation but was rather motivated by deep and warm love. In v.11 Israel expresses his profound gratitude and gives testimony to the glory of God when he says that the Lord had allowed him to see not only Joseph but also his two sons. God had given back to Jacob the favorite son he for so many years thought he had lost, and had allowed the patriarch to see, no doubt before his eyes dimmed, his son’s sons. Our Lord always gives to us far more than we deserve or expect. The giving of our God even exceeds the high expectations of our faith.
Friday, April 11th – Genesis 48: 9, 11
It is evident that both Joseph and his father were men of faith who saw God in all events of their lives. These godly men also rightly gave to the Lord grateful praise for all that He had done for them. We perceive this when Joseph refers in v.9 to his sons not as my sons only, but rather as my sons, whom God has given me here. In v.11, Israel credits God as the One who gave to him the privilege of seeing both Joseph and his sons. Men of faith see the Lord increasingly in all circumstances of their lives, working all things together for their good (Rom. 8:28).
Saturday, April 12th - Genesis 48: 9, 12, 13
In v.9, Israel indicated his intention to bless Joseph’s sons. Although the faithful die with little if any of this world’s goods to pass on to their children, nevertheless, they die heavily laden with rich spiritual blessings to confer upon their children. Joseph demonstrates how highly he valued this spiritual legacy when he prepares himself and his sons to receive it. Here gospel blessing is transmitted from faith to faith, for it is ever by faith and through faith that we perceive, receive, and give any lasting and truly precious blessing.
Sunday, April 13th - Genesis 48: 11, 12
When Israel expressed his gratitude to God for his being enabled by the Lord to see the faces of Joseph and his sons, the father of those sons takes steps to provide more for his father than the mere sight of those sons. Joseph yields Ephraim and Manasseh up to his father, not only so that Israel might embrace them, but especially so that the patriarch might bless them further than he had already done by his having adopted them and assigned them shares in Canaan equal to those of Joseph’s brothers. In respectful gratitude, therefore, Joseph bows, thus yielding himself as well as his sons to his father in honor and loving devotion. Did such giving to Israel in this way represent loss for Joseph and his sons? No greater gain can be had than when we respect and lovingly devote ourselves to godly fathers in the faith who serve to confer upon us increasingly great blessing.
Monday, April 14th - Genesis 48: 13
This verse gives notice of how Joseph prepared his sons to receive their blessing from Israel. In accordance with natural custom, Joseph aligns his sons so that Israel’s right hand—the hand of power and thus greater blessing—would rest upon Manasseh, who was the older, while the patriarch’s left hand would be upon the younger Ephraim. By this, Joseph shows his respect for natural order. Such respect at this point may have issued from Joseph’s humility in that he does not presume to contradict the natural order without express warrant from the Lord. Unless we perceive the Lord’s special grace that at times contradicts natural order, we do well to respect that which is right in the sight of all men (Rom. 12:17).
Tuesday, April 15th - Genesis 48: 14
That which Joseph had prepared in accordance with natural order Israel contradicts by the dictate of the sovereign grace of the Lord. By crossing his hands, Israel placed his right hand, indicating fuller blessing, upon Ephraim, the younger, while still conveying a full and precious blessing to Manasseh. This act of Israel’s was not an automatic contradiction of the natural order; still less did it result from accident. Rather, Israel, with clear spiritual insight and by a special divine intimation, was making a correction that resulted from his apprehension of the prerogative of the Lord. Israel’s natural eyes may have been weak but the eyes of his heart were strong enough to enable him to see clearly the sovereign operations of God. Such spiritual vision is the only vision that is truly necessary.
Wednesday, April 16th - Genesis 48: 14
The hands of Israel were but sensual indicators of the blessing of God that was singular in essence but diverse in its measure. By the seemingly insignificant gesture of the crossing of an old, blind, dying man’s hands we are taught the very significant truth that the strength of God comes upon His people best through weakness, even and especially the weakness of death (Christ’s death and ours in Him). We also are taught that there are diverse measures of blessing in the kingdom of God (Mt. 5:19; 18:1-4). Those more greatly blessed receive their fuller measure of blessing not by their merit but by the mercy of God’s ordaining (Mk. 10:40). But even those receiving a less full measure of blessing have cause to praise God at the threshold of whose house is infinitely greater blessing than could be had on the highest earthly throne (Ps. 84:10).
Thursday, April 17th - Genesis 48: 15, 16
From the placing of Israel’s hands, we are brought to the pronouncement of his lips of the glorious source and gracious content of the blessing that he here conveyed to his sons. Both of Israel’s newly adopted sons receive essentially the same blessing through Israel and through their father, Joseph, upon whom the blessing was pronounced in the persons of his sons. Through the words of this blessing, we learn that although he gave his sons up to his father for adoption, Joseph lost nothing but gained immeasurably by such giving. May we learn from this to give up ourselves and all that we hold dear to our blessing God.
Friday, April 18th - Genesis 48: 15
The blessing of Israel begins with the God of Israel, the source of all blessing. The covenant grace of God is alluded to when Israel refers to the Lord as the God of Abraham and Isaac. It was with Abraham that God entered into a covenant to be his God and the God of his descendants (Gen. 17:1-14). The dynamic nature of the Lord’s covenant is signified by Israel referring to his fathers walking before this gracious, covenant God. It was the Lord who gave them new life and who called and enabled them to pursue a pilgrimage out of sin and into righteousness and out of the world and into heaven’s glory. Although Joseph’s sons would live all of their lives in Egypt, the blessing of this God made them to be not of Egypt but of the glorious heaven of the Lord. We, too, are called to be in but not of this world.
Saturday, April 19th - Genesis: 48: 15
Israel invokes the Lord who is not only the covenant God but also the caring God. He refers to the Lord as, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day. When Jacob schemed against Esau and fled from his murderous anger, when he was tricked by Laban, when he was deprived of Joseph and deceived by his other sons, when he declared in wailing bitterness, all these things are against me, and testified to Pharaoh that the days of his life had been bitter (Gen. 42:36; 47:9), he did not perceive God as his Shepherd. But now at his death Israel sees and testifies that the Lord had been with him and for him throughout all of his life, even to and through the point of his death. Israel therefore calls for the same kind of blessing to encompass Ephraim and Manasseh as well as all of his descendants who should know by faith that the Lord would be their good Shepherd as well.
Sunday, April 20th - Genesis 48: 15, 16
In v.15 Israel invokes the blessing of the covenant and caring God. The completeness and extensiveness of the Lord’s blessing is noted when Israel testifies that the Lord had cared for him, causing all things to work together for his good, all the days of his life. In v.16 the patriarch testifies further that all of the blessing he had received came to him mediated through the angel of the Lord. That unique angel of the Lord had loved him and would in the fullness of time redeem him by laying down His life for him. Israel had received tokens of that eternal redemption in all of the deliverances from earthly trials that the angel had wrought for him. This unique angel or servant of the Lord, is, of course, none other than our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Servant of the Lord (Isa. 42:1-9; 52:13-53:12), and the good Shepherd (Ps. 23: Jn. 10:11-18) who promises ever to be with us throughout our entire lives, just as He, prior to His incarnation, had been with Israel.
Monday, April 21st - Genesis 48: 15, 16
Israel says something very significant and practical about the character of the redemption of the angel of the Lord when, in the first part of v.16, he says that his redemption had been from all evil. Christ does not spare His people pains that, like Paul’s thorn in the flesh, are used by God to work for His people’s good (2 Cor. 12:7-10; 1 Pet. 1:6-9). Our Lord ensures that our pains will serve for our gain and He at the same time prevents any evil from inflicting true injury upon us. Our Redeemer is compassionately committed to delivering us from all evil of sin. He is not committed to delivering ease and comfort to us, when these things can often be gates through which much evil enters our lives to the injury of our souls. Christ’s prayers are for our lasting holiness, not our passing happiness (Jn. 17:17). We do well to see and submit to His loving and wise priority.
Tuesday, April 22nd - Genesis 48: 15, 16
In v.16, Israel moves from the divine source and holy, compassionate, and extensively complete character of the blessing he had perpetually received from his God to the character and content of the blessing he here invokes upon Joseph’s sons. When in v.15 Israel referred to the Lord as the God of his fathers, he implicitly testified to the eternity of the covenant blessing of God. Abraham and Isaac continued to walk with God even after their deaths because the Lord is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mk. 12:27). In addition, the patriarch calls upon God to bless his adopted sons by having his name to be upon them. That namerepresents the great change from Jacob, the supplanter, to Israel, the one who by faith strives and prevails with God. This blessing has come upon all who are justified by faith in Christ, who are the true Israel of God (Rom. 2:28,29; 9:6-13).
Wednesday, April 23rd - Genesis 48: 15, 16
Israel blesses his adopted sons with the promise and prophecy of numerical abundance of descendants. This blessing can be seen in terms of physical fulfillment when in Numbers 1 and 26 we read of the numbers in their tribes being tens of thousands. However, in terms of spiritual blessing there are no doubt countless multitudes of faithful descendants who have issued from Ephraim and Manasseh. Heaven alone will reveal the full count, as it will reveal the great fullness of all the blessings of our God that have come to us through Christ.
Thursday, April 24th - Genesis 48: 17, 18
While Israel is dispensing blessing, Joseph is growing in displeasure. Israel’s favorite and most faithful son reveals that his eyes were dimmer at this point than were those of his blind father. Joseph thought that the defect in Israel’s eyesight had resulted in a defect of his application of the blessing. In an attempt to make matters better, Joseph almost makes them worse. He tries by the arm of flesh to rectify the defect he thought he saw in this blessing. But Joseph is actually showing too much regard for the natural order that divine grace often overrules, as it had done with Jacob and Esau as well as with Joseph and his older brothers. Joseph also had too much regard for natural impediments such as Israel’s physical blindness. Finally, Joseph had too little regard for the precious and prevailing power of faith which had been his own guiding light throughout his dark trials in Egypt. Joseph is showing here his own need to be re-engaged to walk by faith in divine promises and not by sight in the natural powers of Egypt.
Friday, April 25th - Genesis 48: 19, 20
Israel exercises tender but prevailing power in stirring Joseph’s sluggish faith. In the reiterated words, I know, I know, Israel makes clear that he was acting not in ignorance resulting from his poor eyesight, but rather in knowledge resulting from a pure heart that saw his God (Mt. 5:8). In God’s light he saw true light by which to serve for the blessing of others (Ps. 36:9). Too often we think that we see better than our God who sees all, and that we know better than our Lord who knows all.
Saturday, April 26th - Genesis 48: 19, 20
Although Joseph is here acting by natural sight rather than by faith, Israel does not roughly upbraid him but tenderly addresses him as my son. This is a word of most gentle and loving rebuke that serves to recall Joseph from the blinding worldly glories of Egypt to the seeing world of dependence upon his heavenly Father whom his earthly father was serving. Regarding the two sons here blessed, neither would be a loser, for both received the same blessing. But the difference of the preferment of the younger opens our eyes to the glory of God’s grace and to the truth that salvation and assignment of blessing in the Kingdom of God is not by human merit or might but by the mercy of our loving heavenly Father.
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