The first is that the extent of the birthright as he sets it up here, is limited to being fruitful and multiplying and inheriting the land. He does not go any further than that. There is no promise of spiritual blessings or of any kind of kingship because that scepter promise we find in the next chapter, goes to Judah, not to Joseph. And so those things, with the coming of the Messiah and all that, all those spiritual blessings that would come through Him, they are not part of the birthright that was given to Joseph and his two sons.
The second thing that we need to pick out here is that Jacob, when he first begins to talk to Joseph, immediately calls them Ephraim and Manasseh, not Manasseh and Ephraim as they are introduced in the first verse of the chapter. He turns it around immediately and says, Ephraim and Manasseh, Ephraim first and then Manasseh.
Third point, despite those two boys being his grandsons, Jacob adopts them as his sons. He pulls them up a generation, if you will, and he makes them superior to his first two sons. He specifically mentions Reuben and Simeon, which are one and two in the birth order of Jacob. But he says, "No, these two, Ephraim and Manasseh, will be one and two." It is almost as if he is replacing them, I guess he is, replacing them on top of the heap. So, Jacob's sons really should go Ephraim, Manasseh, then Rueben, then Simeon, because he pulled them up and made them his adopted sons as his firstborn sons. So, Ephraim and Manasseh slot in above the other sons of Jacob in terms of inheritance. They go straight to the top—head of the class. They are firstborns now. Both of them our firstborns.
The fourth point, if Joseph had any other children, and we have no idea whether he did or not, he may have, there is nothing in the Bible that says he had other children, but Jacob takes care of the possibility that that would occur. Joseph was evidently still a fairly young man and his wife fairly young too. But if they had any other children, they would be considered either Ephraimites or Manassites. They would not begin their own tribe. Like I said, we have no record of any other children by Joseph, but Jacob's charge here that they would be slotted in under Ephraim and Manasseh as either Ephraimites or Manassites takes care of that possibility.
