“¹Now 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. ²And Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph is coming to you”; and Israel strengthened himself and sat up on the bed.”

– Genesis 48:1-2 (NKJV)

“Now it came to pass after these things that Joseph was told (with the grave knowing authority of a Kindly, Wise servant no doubt), “Indeed your father is sick” (severe illness in very old age was but a natural sign to historic man that the outworking of the sin curse of death would have its way in the body of an individual, signalling that his God appointed time to be rescued from this sin-cursed temporary habitation has arrived, and as such, this occasion was peaceably accepted by all: oh woe is me how we have compromised and manipulated such an appropriate dealing with the inevitability of death, and respect for God’s Sovereign Timing by our preoccupation with medical science!); and he took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (how weighty, how precious this momentous occasion of The Blessing in The Name of Almighty God, The Most High God, El Shaddai in Ancient Israel: literally a blessing at the hand of the man who personifies all of Israel, a Patriarch of The Faith, Jacob, who will now proceed to bless not only two dearly beloved children of his most beloved child, his very own grandchildren from his own flesh, but effectively two of the very tribes of Israel, with generational outworkings on a grand scale I doubt any of the individuals gathered in this room around this deathbed at this point in time can even begin to imagine). And Jacob was told, “Look, your son Joseph is coming to you” (once again I believe the information was volunteered by a Kindly, Wise servant: a steward of events appointed by God for precisely such a time as this – oh Dearest Friend let us not esteem little the seemingly most insignificant tasks God has entreated us to perform in His Kingdom – of how much greater consequence might it be than we can even begin to realise!); and Israel strengthened himself  (undoubtedly with what meagre strength he could muster, understanding at least on some perhaps subconscious level the importance of what is about to unfold: oh what Wisdom doth the Fear of The Lord bring, how effortlessly it renders sacrifice!) and sat up on the bed (again we recognise a peculiar reverence for Joseph himself, signifying I believe a spiritual understanding that it is by ‘The Son’ – The Christ again here represented in Joseph – through whom you are to be saved, the inherent acknowledgment that it is by a far superior Covenant – through the suffering and bloodshed of a Chosen Anointed One, A Messiah – that one is legally able to make this transition from a temporary body of death in this sin-cursed world to An Eternal Body of Glory in An Eternal Dwelling Place In The Presence of The Most High God 😃).”