After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is WILD BY NATURE, and contrary to nature were GRAFTED INTO a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be GRAFTED INTO their own olive tree! Romans 11:24 (Paul used term ‘Grafted in’ five times in just eight verses)
The account of Israel continued with Jacob living seventeen years in Egypt, but when he knew his time to leave was drawing to a close and he called for Joseph.
‘If I have found favour in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt, 30 but when I rest with my fathers, CARRY ME OUT OF EGYPT AND BURY ME WHERE THEY ARE BURIED.’
‘I will do as you say,’ he said.
31 ‘SWEAR TO ME,’ he said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff.
These things were important to Jacob, the patriarch, as he neared the end of his life. He had to be in the land God had given Israel on oath (not the land of Pharaoh Slave System).
Joseph heard his father was ill and brought his two sons to be blessed by Jacob, again something important for their future destiny. Jacob repeated the Lord’s word to him at Luz;
3 Jacob said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me 4 and said to me, “I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.” Genesis 48
Immediately followed by Jacob declaring that Joseph’s two sons born in Egypt would be counted as his, brought into the Covenant with God right at the end of Jacob’s life. God can sometimes settle important issues just before the time closes e.g. Rahab and all her family delivered from Jericho. Late in the day, but never too late for God.
Not only did Jacob adopt Joseph’s sons as his own, but he reversed the natural order of their births as he blessed them, significant for the outworking of God’s purpose in their lives. Ephraim’s name means ‘TWICE FRUITFUL’.
. 14 But Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn.
15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
‘May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
– may he bless these boys.
May they be called by my name
and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
and may they increase greatly
on the earth.’
Joseph was annoyed that Jacob had put his right hand on Ephraim, the sign of his might, but his father wouldn’t change the blessing.
20 He blessed them that day and said,
‘In your and name will Israel pronounce this blessing:
“May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.”’
So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
Some things, many things, are settled outside of time in the plan and purpose of God and He alone knows the way that we take. Jacob declared that God had been his shepherd all his life, to that day and His Angel had protected him.
May God bless and keep us this day and be our shepherd and protector in all our lives.