revealing more to explain His wisdom? My rambling dementia still is coherent enough to ask why God never wanted us to leave the promised land, even at the time of famine coming during Abraham's time, telling our people, Do not go down into Egypt, but dwell in the land where I show you, dwell in it and I will be with you. Is this a trial or punishment to live with pagans, being tempted by their evil ways, surrounded by their many idols, worshipping opulence and gods unable to answer their needs or satisfy their desires?
Bystander: Did you ever destroy the pagans as the Lord commanded, building barriers to their sinful ways, never lusting after their men and women, disavowing allegiance to all of their many gods, never sacrificing the fruit of your wombs to Molech, never living under direction of your pride, disregarding advent of certain humility to prepare you for becoming righteous, forgetting your God to live the way of the world, did you ever?
Jacob: We obeyed God's laws as well as we could, being too many for extending remembrance for all. He never understood our limitations when He gave us so many to obey.
Bystander: Perhaps when He recognized you did not live as you should, it would matter little where you lived, seeing Egypt no different from the promised land, supporting the same sinful indiscretions in both. Striking a famine in each, severe enough to revoke His order to never go down to Egypt, seemed a good way to stir the pot of His blessed people to become the blessing God planned for them.
Jacob: Do you really think God uses famine to achieve His goals?
Bystander: No one can predict His methods, much less understand them, unless He chooses a messenger to reveal His plans, a prophet to convey His intent, but discernment may not be profited for one without His spirit. Egypt may be the best place for separating wheat from its chaff, for protecting those choosing to follow Him, preventing vagrant ones from claiming any blessings, allowing earthly ones to suffer famine, minding worldly things, but people doing the will of the Father in heaven, feeding their souls with the bread of life, can never be oppressed by starvation of their spirit, blaming it on famine, trusting the Lord will not strike down just souls with famine, assuring them to continue their nourishment with bread from heaven, never suffering them with a famine of hearing the Lord's word.
Jacob: Do you believe God has used me to achieve His goals?
Bystander: You must wait for Him to tell you, seeing your time is almost finished. He assures us many answers come only after ending our days here. You have one remaining obligation, your father’s enduring custom, more than a tradition, passing on the blessing, instructing your heirs how they are blessed.
Jacob: I fear the Lord will tell me, He who has not renounced all he possesses cannot be a witness to Him. Must I claim this for my sons to believe.
Bystander: God will not ask to snatch your needs and give them to ones for whom He provides, to return your gifts, the possessions He has blessed you with, gifts never for cultivating your land, but for the soil of your soul, never for terminally lasting but for eternally lasting.
Blessings—Exposing the Blameless
Jacob: God dims my vision, reducing my possession's value, blinding me to its worth, established during my prideful younger days, but now age tarnishes its brilliance, reducing its luster, as I approach sunset's descent foretelling my end. He has not destroyed my mind's acuity, however, so you can trust virtue still clings to my blessings, as I remain obedient to His visions, remaining important for sight of my soul.
Joseph: Standing before me are my two sons, born to my wife who grew up not knowing our God, worshipping only gods, so many to cause one to stumble, obstacles to one's every endeavor, but these sons have been instructed to be true to our God, learning to trust and obey Him in all things, and they wait now for the blessings He ordains, following what He has done for our forefathers. Bringing them here, gifts of life God has entrusted to me, following customs He prescribes for His chosen ones, they bow down to await your blessing, directed by God, believing to be blessed by you might be your final celebration for their lives.
Jacob: Bring them to me, I pray you will consent, allowing me to bless them before my life departs, close enough for me to embrace and kiss them, to rejoice in my final moments, having seen my Joseph's face again, never believing God would bless me so, resurrecting my trust to be with his mother again, my favorite vessel for my most cherished sons, and lo, God, piling blessing on blessing, lets me also see her seed now, my offspring in life, entrusting them to continue in obedience, never forgetting our covenant's promises.
Joseph: I bow before you, facing the earth reflecting God's grace, springing from the soil of His creation, as I give father Jacob my sons to bless, dedicating them to carry on God's promise. I take Manasseh the first born to your right hand and Ephraim the younger to be at your left hand, each one for you to bless.
Bystander: Jacob stretched out his right hand, laying it on Ephraim's head, and laid his left hand on the head of Manasseh.
Jacob: Having blessed Joseph in the name of God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, God who has led me all my life, continuing long to this day, His angel who has redeemed me from all evil, I bless these lads, expecting them to perpetuate my name, and never forget the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, letting them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
Joseph: Father, remove your right hand from Ephraim's head. You are not blessing the first-born, Manasseh. Bless him with your right hand on his head. Your age and eyesight confuse you with this mistake.
Jacob: I know well my actions. Don't change what I do. I know, my son, I know, seeing my right hand chooses the one who will become a great people, following God's direction. My left hand blesses the older brother and he also is to become a great people, but the younger shall be greater, with his descendants becoming a multitude of nations. I bless them now, proclaiming, By you Israel pronounces blessings, ordaining you both, created by God, making you Ephraim and Manasseh, as I hereby put Ephraim before Manasseh, knowing he will always be faithful, never fearful, leading us into the promised land. Awaken to the reality of my flesh, realizing I am about to die, I pray God will be with you, promising to bring you back to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given you rather than your brothers one mountain slope which I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and bow.
Joseph: You bless my sons as they were yours, realizing you must be following the Lord's direction, disregarding tradition's custom, seeing something unseen by me, discerning things invisible revealed through the eyes of faith, gathering your actions to prophetically prepare our people for times to come.
Jacob: My blessing is to insure perpetuation of Joseph's virtues, assuring them to retain their radiance, passing them down unblemished to protect our people's promise. God knows who must be blessed to protect His covenant. Now call all my other sons together, bringing them in so I can tell them what will befall them in days to come. Assemble and hear, O sons of Jacob, harken to Israel your father, hearing my words of fortune and woe, assembled from visions foretelling what you should know, revealing what your lives promise for your sons and daughters.
Bystander: Jacob watches, interpreting his visions, transforming them into words, blessing his sons with important understandings, incomparable insights, begging them all to hear, telling of things to come, imprinting all to remembrance, foretelling circumstances directed by God for sustaining their nation. Hear what he tells his other sons.
Jacob: Reuben, you are my first-born, my might, and the first fruits of my strength, pre-eminent in pride and celebrated in power. Unstable as water, you will not celebrate virtuous distinction because you went up to your father's bed, defiling it, staining my couch with your seed. You shame creation's intent, separating us from beasts having no instincts to deny adulterous behavior, wild ones driven innately by inherent lusts, without any choice if they would ever be approved, conflicting with creation's virtues assembled for you, but chosen by you to ignore. Can't you wait for God's commands, telling
your actions are unacceptable--responding to your instinct's calling--condemning them as sinful, painful to His sight, as you silence His voice within you, never listening to the conscience He implanted in your soul? If you could have waited until scribes spelled out God's laws, inscribing them for all to see, you would have seen the invisible become visible, telling you how to live. None the less, Reuben will be blessed, with his seed living and never dying out, promising his progeny will never be few, so a prophet will come to erase his sin, assuring he will never be cut off from his brother's number.
Reuben: Who can lay claim to a concubine, making her for only one to possess, invading her virtue as only one man's prerogative to lust, desiring her more than the wife God ordains man to be united with as one? Is your concubine the slave who gives you freedom to be yourself, pridefully deciding who you are? I am the first-born. Don't you know the privileges and ways of a first-born son?
Jacob: You have a stigma of blame, recorded for posterity, testifying to your lust, unyielding in