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Revelations 3:21
I will let him who wins the victory sit with me on my throne, just as I myself also won the victory and sat down with my Father on his throne. In the ancient Middle East, when a father bestowed his blessing on his children he laid his hands on them. In the case of Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, we are privy to the awkward picture of two grown young men sitting on the lap of a blind and frail man over one hundred and thirty years old (Genesis 48: 10-12). In the ancient middle-East sitting on man's lap was part of a ritual of adoption. In that passage of Text, Jacob/Israel does not only bless the children of Joseph born in exile from an Egyptian wife, but he adopts them as his own (Genesis 48:5-6). After this clever patriarchal maneuver, the two boys will technically become brothers to their father and to their uncles. They will inherit as brothers at the same level as the other children of Jacob. They also each will have a tribal allotment in the Promised Land and this indirectly allows Jacob to bestow upon Joseph the double-portion reserved to first-borns, thus circumventing Leah's children. Judah inherited the 'scepter' and the 'crown' of the kings of Israel, but Joseph remained the first-born. From Joshua, several judges, and even the Prophet Samuel, the tribe of Ephraim remained in leadership. Even the Ark remained in Shiloh, Ephraim. King Saul was the first one to call the loose federation of Israeli tribes together to fight against Amalek, and David is the one who united the country as one, thus foreshadowing the Messianic age when peace and unity will be finally accomplished between the House of Leah and the House of Rachel (Ezekiel 37: 15-22). But what about the adoption program? As Jacob prophesied, until this day, each Friday evening at the Welcoming of the Sabbath, Jews bless their boys with the words, "May God make you like Efrayim and M'nasheh (Genesis 48:20)". I know a family that even puts their boys on their lap as they do that. This father of course doesn't need to 'adopt' his boys but there is connection here that as Ephraim and Manasseh were adopted by their grand-father to become full members of the patriarchal leadership of Israel as he uttered Abraham's blessing upon them, so all of us are adopted by Hashem. Abraham was adopted and in him so are we all. The idea also is that Joseph is highly looked upon, considered as someone strong who did not compromise with Egypt. We want to be like his children who probably inherited their father's virtue and strength. To the Messianic community of Laodicea Yeshua says, I will let him who wins the victory sit with me on my throne, just as I myself also won the victory and sat down with my Father on his throne (Revelations 3:21). I always pictured this as a child on the lap of his father or grand-father sitting on his armchair. In this case we have a three generation adoption ritual. Yeshua the 'Begotten' being vested in all the powers of the Father (Psalm 2:7-12) endows these same powers to His victorious 'overcomers' whom He adopts and in whom He invests His powers to rule. May Hashem make you all like Ephraim and Manasseh!
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John 10:16
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Retelling the life story of Joseph we have played with the very important midrashic messianic analogy equating Joseph to Messiah. This has led us to observe that Benjamin represented the Jewish people who did not reject Messiah/Joseph. We are now at the part where Jacob meets his two grand-children conceived through Joseph by an Egyptian mother, the daughter of a priest of Egypt. At first, he does not know who these Egyptian looking kids are. When he finds out, he adopts them as his own. The idea of redemption through adoption is a main theme throughout the whole Tanach. Starting with Abraham, each of us is an adopted son (Romans 9:4-5). In adopting Joseph’s son as his own, Jacob accomplished a very tricky maneuver. His showing favor to Joseph had already caused him much trouble so this time, instead of openly conferring to Joseph the right of first-born, Jacob adopts Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of the son of his true chosen bride and love of his life, Rachel. This not only has the effect of these sons and nephews becoming brothers to their father and uncles, but for Joseph to receive the double-inheritance which is conferred to firstborns. Ephraim and Manasseh could be compared to the offspring of Messiah while in Diaspora exile. Jacob actually says of Ephraim that he will become ‘the multitude of the nations’ (The Hebrew text uses the definite article ‘the’); in Hebrew, this is the same expression used in Romans 11:25, ‘a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the ‘fullness of the Gentiles’ (in Hebrew: the multitude of the nations) has come in.’ Judaism teaches that when Israel was evicted from its land by the Romans, Messiah went to exile with them. Just like Joseph, while in exile Messiah has been busy raising Himself an offspring among the Gentiles, an offspring to be adopted alongside the Jewish people (Ephesians 1-2). Today Judaism and Christianity are seen as two different religions. The truth is that Christianity outside of Judaism did not exist for the first three hundred years after Yeshua and the apostles. Today if a Jew wants His Messiah, Christians tell him that he has to ‘convert’. Convert from what to what? It is the pagans who needed to convert from idolatrous paganism to the God of Israel. It is strange because originally the question was not weather a Jew could be part of the Church but weather a non-Jew could be part of Israel. In Acts 15, the Jewish disciples accepted the Gentile converts, but today, does the Church accept a Jew? In the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, we see that in actuality, in Messiah non-Jews are grafted in the 'olive tree' of Jacob/Israel, not Israel in the Gentile Roman ‘Christmas tree’ (Romans 11). Joel rightly prophecied that at the end of time God will pour His Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), not just on Israel. In that day, there will truly be one shepherd and one flock. May it happen soon Abba, even in our days! Acts 1:6
Adon, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Through an undesired twist of fate, the patriarch Jacob found himself married to two sisters, Leah and Rachel, thus creating two main factions within Israel. Jacob favored Rachel and gave her firstborn Joseph the mantle of leadership over his whole household. The other brothers, the children of Leah, rejected Joseph’s authority and position. Reuben was in fact the firstborn of Jacob through Leah, but his actions cause him to lose the right of first-born. The same happened to the next ones in line: Simeon and Levy. Leadership of Israel then fell on Judah, Jacob’s fourth born. Israel’s History is punctuated by the rivalry between the House of Joseph and the House of Judah. Prophets have expressed the World to Come as the time when the two Houses born from Israel are finally united in peace. Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. When Moses died, leadership of the newborn nation of Israel was given to the House of Joseph through Joshua the Ephraimite. Until the reign of Saul the Benjamite, leadership in Israel fell on Judges who were mostly from either the tribes of Ephraim or Manasseh, the House of Joseph. It is King David from Judah who united the tribes under one rule and started the Davidic dynasty that was to fulfill Jacob’s prophecy and usher in the Messiah (Genesis 49:8-12). At the end of the Solomonic reign, the country was again divided into two camps: the Ephraim and the Judah camps. Most of the tribes from the House of Leah joined with Ephraim and Judah was left alone with Benjamin. Ephraim became the Northern Kingdom, and Judah the Southern Kingdom, with Benjamin stuck in between the two. Eventually the Assyrian conquered and deported the Northern Kingdom and Nebuchadnezzar deported the Judeans to Babylon. At the end of the Babylonian exile, King Cyrus issued the order for all the captives of Israel from either North or South to be allowed to return to the Land. In his prophecies of the ‘two sticks’, the prophet Ezekiel speaks to us of the Messianic Age, the time when the two houses of Israel are again united under the Judean Davidic leadership (Ezekiel 34-37). This comes in fulfillment of the Psalms which tell us: He (Hashem) rejected the tent of Joseph; he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loves (Psalms 78:67-68). Ezekiel’s prophecy of the two sticks united (Ezekiel 37) is actually an echo of the reunification of the two houses foreshadowed by Joseph when he embraces his brothers lead by Judah as he reveals himself to them (Genesis 45). The reunification of the two houses is and has always been one of the main signs of the Messianic Age and of the coming of Messiah. Before Yeshua ascended to the Father, His disciples asked Him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6)?" Which meant, “Will You at this time restore the twelve tribes as a sovereign nation? To which He answered, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7-8)." May it happen soon Abba, even in our days! John 10:16
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Retelling the life story of Joseph we have played with the very important midrashic messianic analogy equating Joseph to Messiah. This has led us to observe that Benjamin represented the Jewish people who did not reject Messiah/Joseph. Continuing the same methodology in the story, we are confronted with Jacob introduced to his grand-children conceived through Joseph by an Egyptian mother. At first, he does not know who these Egyptian looking kids are. When he finds out, he adopts them as his own. The idea of redemption through adoption is a main theme throughout the whole Bible. Starting with Abraham, each of us is an adopted son (Romans 9:4-5). In adopting Joseph’s son as his own, Jacob accomplished a tricky maneuver. His showing favor to Joseph had already caused him much trouble, so this time, instead of openly giving Joseph the right of first-born, Jacob confers this honor to the first born of his true chosen bride and love of his life, Rachel by adopting as his own the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, thereby causing them to receive each an inheritance. This not only has the effect of these sons and nephews becoming brothers to their father and uncles, but for Joseph to receive the double-inheritance which is conferred to firstborns. These could be compared to the offspring of Messiah while in Diasporah exile. Jacob actually says of Ephraim that he will become ‘the multitude of the nations’ (The Hebrew text uses the definite article ‘the’); in Hebrew, this is the same expression used in Romans 11:25, ‘a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the ‘fullness of the Gentiles’ (in Hebrew: the multitude of the nations) has come in.’ Judaism teaches that when Israel was evicted from its land by the Romans, Messiah went to exile with them. Just like Joseph, while in exile Messiah has been busy raising Himself an offspring among the Gentiles, an offspring to be adopted alongside the Jewish people (Ephesians 1-2). Today Judaism and Christianity are seen as two different religions, one who accepts Messiah and the other who doesn’t. The truth of the matter is that Christianity started as a sect of Judaism within Judaism. Christianity without Judaism did not exist for the first three hundred years after Yeshua and the apostles. The tragedy is that today if a Jew wants Messiah he is told to ‘convert’ and become a Christian. It is strange because the big question and novelty for the disciples in the early days of the Nazarene movement was if a non-Jew could be accepted as a follower of Messiah. In the adoption of Ephraim and Manasseh, we see that in actuality, in Messiah non-Jews are grafted in the olive tree of Jacob/Israel, not Israel in the Gentile Roman ‘Christmas tree’ (Romans 11). We also foresee Joel’s prophecy that at the end of time God will pour His Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), not just Israel. In that day, there will truly be one shepherd and one flock. May it happen soon Abba, even in our days! |
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