GENESIS 48:17-20

 Q: I'm not clear on why GOD chooses Ephraim over Manasseh?

 

This is the last in a series of occasions in Genesis where God chose a younger son to carry on the

 blessing:  Abel and Seth over Cain, Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Judah and Joseph over 

their older brothers, Perez over Zarah, etc.

 

Regarding this particular occasion, Allen Ross explains it as follows:

“Joseph, and many others like him, expected God to work in a certain way but found that he 

chose to work  in a different and unconventional way. Joseph had brought his two sons before 

Jacob so that Manasseh would receive the first blessing, but Jacob crossed his hands. It had 

taken Jacob a lifetime of discipline to  learn this truth about God. In his early years he had 

deceived his blind father for the blessing, but in his  duty now of passing on the blessing, he 

performed in the way that God wanted, blessing the younger over the elder (see the oracle in 

25:23). He would not attempt to bless the wrong one, as his father had attempted to do, nor 

would he handle the blessing dishonestly.” (Creation & Blessing, p. 693)

 

This same general principle can be seen operating even today. As Paul says to the Corinthian 

church: 

“God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than 

human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise 

by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose 

what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to 

shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to 

reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might  boast in the presence of God.” 

(I Corinthians 1:25-29)