Final Days of Israel (Jacob)

Jacob (also known as Israel) had faithfully walked with the living Sovereign LORD God as He commanded Abraham, and God’s ministering Angel had protected Jacob from Satan’s harms and evil. Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter named Dinah, and the twelves sons were named as follows: Reuben (Jacob’s oldest), Simeon, Levi (priestly tribe), Judah (Jesus’s descendent), Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph (father of Ephraim and Manasseh), and Benjamin. Before his death, Jacob humbly instructed his son Joseph and then his other sons to carry him out of Egypt and bury him in the Promised Land of Canaan (Israel-Palestine), where his grandparents - Abraham and Sarah, his parents - Isaac and Rebekah, and his wife Leah were all buried. In his dying breath, Jacob had future hope, knowing that the living Sovereign LORD God would bless and be with his sons as He had promised, and He would bring Jacob and his twelve sons from Egypt back to the Promised Land of Canaan, which He had promised to Abraham and Isaac. 

 

As Jacob neared the end of his life, Jacob gave his twelve sons - the Twelve Tribes of Israel - his final blessings. Joseph heard his father Jacob was very sick and dying, so he took his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to see his father, Jacob. Then, Jacob informed Joseph and his two sons that God Almighty (El Shaddai) had appeared to him in Luz (Bethel) in the land of Canaan (present-day Israel-Palestine), and God Almighty had blessed him with the divine promises of Abraham and Isaac: the land of Canaan and numerous descendants. Jacob also said that God Almighty promised to make him fruitful and multiply his descendants into a great nation, and give him and his descendants the land of Canaan (Israel-Palestine) as an everlasting possession, as He had promised to Abraham and Isaac. 

 

Then, Jacob blessed and, importantly, adopted Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, as his descendants and co-heirs with his other sons, such as Reuben and Simeon. In other words, Manasseh and Ephraim were now Jacob’s sons, and Joseph now would receive double blessings from Israel through his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Significantly, Jacob blessed Ephraim with the divine and covenant blessings of his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac over Joseph’s firstborn and oldest son, Manasseh. Jacob blessed Ephraim, the younger son, with the primary blessings to be greater and to multiply with many descendants more than his older brother and firstborn son, Manasseh. Notably, Jacob was also the younger son of Isaac and Rebekah, and he received the blessings of the firstborn over his brother Esau. Many years later, Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim became large and powerful tribes in the Promised Land. Ephraim became the leading tribe in the northern kingdom of Israel, and the entire northern kingdom was occasionally referred to as Ephraim. 

 

After blessing and adopting Joseph’s sons, Jacob called and gathered his twelve sons so that he could provide final blessings and also some curses on each of his sons. Jacob trusted in the living Sovereign LORD God for hope and salvation that would come through his family. Notably, Jacob anticipated that his sons Judah and Joseph would be preeminent amongst his sons, and Judah and Joseph received Jacob’s important blessings. The firstborn son, Reuben, was stripped of his birthright as Israel’s firstborn son because Reuben could not control his desires and had sexual relations with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. Moreover, Simeon and Levi received Jacob’s curses to be scattered because of their uncontrolled anger, cruelty, and violence towards people and animals when Shechem harmed their sister Dinah. Judah largely absorbed Simeon’s land, and Levi, who eventually became the priestly tribe of Israel, never acquired their land; however, Levi’s land was scattered among his brothers in Canaan. 

 

Significantly, Jacob praised and blessed his fou