008. Israel’s Prayer For God’s Blessing On Joseph, Ephraim, And Manasseh.
Israel’s Prayer For God’s Blessing On Joseph, Ephraim, And Manasseh. The Prayer as recorded.—Genesis 48:15-16; Genesis 48:20-21.
Joseph was the long-expected son of Rachel, the wife of Jacob, or Israel. Ephraim and Manasseh were Joseph’s children, and the scene in which the following prayer is introduced is one of peculiar interest to the believer, and will teach him to trust more firmly in the promises of God. The feebleness of old age had stolen over the form of the patriarch Jacob; his sight is dimmed by time, but the eyes of his soul look out clearly, through the shadows of the future, far into a “glorious day,” in a coming age. The life of the old man is drawing to a close. He had suffered as one suffers to whom God gives deep and strong affections, but through all his trials he had learned, “the foolishness of God was wiser than men, and his weakness stronger;” his hand, like every human hand, had clasped some fleeting shadows, but it rested now where earth could never loosen it, in the firm grasp of the Almighty.
Joseph, the wise, the humble, the discreet, the attractive son of the never-forgotten Rachel, has come with his children to receive a father’s blessing, a father’s parting words ere he sleeps in death. Guided by heaven the hand of Jacob rests first on the head of the younger as he asks the protecting care of God to be over and above the loved ones before him; he prays that they may inherit the privileges and walk in the footsteps of their progenitors, and that the name Israel, that name of so much import, might descend upon them, and they might be raised to their hereditary rank and honor. God guided the spirit of Jacob while he prayed, taught him what to ask for, and how to ask; thus instructed he knew the will of God respecting those who were to come after him, the children of Rachel now kneeling before him. The patriarch’s work is nearly over; in his dying hours his voice is raised to God, bearing testimony to others that the “angel” had redeemed his soul from evil—as he will the souls of all who call upon him with the faith of Jacob. A Christian deathbed, the last prayers of the dying believer are themes on which we love to linger, as we walk through the world. They strengthen our faith and encourage our tottering footsteps over its rough places. Teach us to pray on, pray ever, till our own day draw to a close, and our spirits rest, “Like some deep lake upon a mountain summit, High above cloud and storm of life like this,.
All peace and “power”