Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap.

Yesterday we saw Jacob preparing for his death at the age of 147 by asking his son Joseph

to make sure he was buried in Canaan, not Egypt.

Today we pick up with Jacob blessing Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh before he dies.

Jacob recounts God's promises to him to give him many offspring and to give them the land of Canaan,

and he refers to God by a name we've seen a few times, God Almighty.

This is translated from the Hebrew El Shaddai, which loosely means God of the Mountains.

One of the things we haven't talked about much but that's really important is that God's names represent his character.

They tell us who he is and what he does.

We've got a list of God's names and attributes that we would love to share with you because we really believe they'll help you as you're reading through Scripture and looking for your God shot each day.

Stay tuned at the end of this episode to find out where to grab that free PDF.

Jacob continues his speech to Joseph and in it he does a peculiar thing.

He formally adopts Joseph's children as his own, possibly because he was robbed of having Joseph in his life as a young boy,

but had gotten this man many years with these children.

He compares Joseph's two oldest children to his two oldest children, Ruben and Simeon.

And while this feels a little weird to me, it's actually probably a generous move.

A way of establishing that these two boys will receive an inheritance from him along with Joseph's brothers.

They will be heirs to the land and the promise.

This will continue to come into play in our reading, so make a mental note of it.

Joseph brought the boys to him and positioned Manasseh, the oldest, in front of Jacob's right hand,

because that was considered to be the hand of blessing and power.

And he positions Ephraim the youngest in front of Jacob's left hand.

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