“¹⁷Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. ¹⁸And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”

– Genesis 48:17-18 (NKJV)

“Now when Joseph saw ○ that his father *** laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased * him; so he took hold of his father’s *** hand to ** remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. And Joseph said to his father ***, “Not so, my father ***, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”

Dear Friends, let us shudder at how easily – be it due to self-righteousness, leaning upon our own understanding or due to seemingly well-intentioned but ill-advised urges of the flesh – we presume to know better than Our Heavenly Father! I cringe! Let us then rather ‘Trust & Obey’ from a posture of abject humility, as dependent babes who comprehend nothing. However “wrong” a thing might appear from our “learned” estimation, or however long we may have “walked with God”, let us never forget that “our God is in heaven; He does whatever HE pleases” (Psalm 115:3) – however much it might “displease ” * us – and that even if we are invited to “reason with Him” (Isaiah 1:18), this is but a special Grace extended to us intended ultimately to Glorify God’s Immeasurable Love For His Household (Eph 2:19). Also forgetting not that even His Only Begotten Son, Our Beloved King Jesus, was not exempt from this utter dependency in relating to The Father, nor even was He, the Very Son of God, permitted to speak out of his own opinion (John 5:19, John 5:30, John 6:38, John 12:49, John 14:10) & that there will always be those things known exclusively by The Father alone that according to His Good Pleasure He chooses in His Infinite Wisdom to keep hidden (Matthew 24:36). We see also that The Holy Spirit, despite being able to “search The Deep Things of God” is bound to this relationship of dependency (John 16:13). In this passage it is also important to note that even if we imagine God has always done things a certain way and we anticipate that He would continue to do so, we might be wrong; that even if we imagine that a thing happened in an unconventional or atypical way due simply to the error of man (e.g. Esau’s overthrowing the tradition of firstborn rights through his sinful behaviour here in Genesis, or King David’s passing down erroneous, adulterous behaviour to King Solomon through his sin with his mother) – and that it is not all part of a carefully constructed Sovereign Plan on the part of Our Heavenly Father – we are also sorely mistaken. For in this instance it would be understandable for example to consider that Joseph here might fear that Jacob is seeking to rationalise the cunning ways of his youth by instilling them in the next generation, only we must not forget that it was already at Jacob and Esau’s birth that this course of events was established (see Gen 25:23 in Part 9 [Genesis 48:14] previously), doing well also to consider the profound revelation of far-reaching consequence in terms of The New Covenant, namely that “the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves” (see Luke 22:26 also in Part 9 [Genesis 48:14] previously) that God is working out through these seemingly upside-down dealings with ‘tradition’. Let us then once again soberly review this text, lest we should be so foolish as to attempt to “[take] hold of [The] father’s hand to ” ** try and make Him do anything He does not intend 🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♀️! Let this be all the more urgent then Dear Friends at this moment in time that Truly, Truly God is saying : “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it ○ ? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19

*** How much the worse when four times it is confirmed that it is indeed “His Father”, “My Father” – the very “Our Father” (Matt 6:9) Whose Name Is To Be Hallowed – that here- and in our own lives is often treated with such insolence 😖.”