Genesis48chapter 48

The words with which Jacob sets Ephraim and Manasseh into the blessing of Israel, at the twentieth verse, are the wording a Jewish parent says over a son on the eve of the Sabbath. That custom is the writer's reading and is marked as such here: this repository does not yet record it in any file, and the corpus for this chapter carries no comment on that verse under a licence permitting quotation, so the statement stands without a source until one is added to the sources page. What the corpus does carry at the verse is a citation, Bamidbar Rabbah 14:4, and a comment of Rashi that stands as a reference alone.

Rashi comments at nineteen places in this chapter and the corpus holds no English of any of them under a licence permitting quotation, so his whole commentary here stands as citation: Rashi on Genesis 48:1:1, 48:1:2, 48:2:1, 48:2:2, 48:4:1, 48:5:1, 48:6:1, 48:7:1, 48:8:1, 48:9:1, 48:11:1, 48:12:1, 48:13:1, 48:14:1, 48:16:1, 48:17:1, 48:19:1, 48:20:1 and 48:22:1. Five comments carry English. Radak reads Jacob's opening as a return to a place and a promise, "that was the location where G'd had introduced Himself to Yaakov with His attribute of Shaddai", and points back to the blessing given there (Radak on Genesis 48:3:1, translated by Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY). On the blessing of the grandsons he explains why the verse says that Jacob blessed Joseph when the words are said over the boys: "anyone blessing his sons, automatically was conferring a blessing on him also" (Radak on Genesis 48:15:1). Jacob's last words to Joseph he reads as a command about a future generation, "I am close to dying, therefore I command you that when the time comes and the Lord will bring you back", the promise being to the descendants rather than to the sons standing there (Radak on Genesis 48:21:1). Sforno explains Joseph's attempt to move his father's hands as a reading of his father's mind: "Once he would place his hand on the head of Menashe, Joseph felt sure that his father's mind would follow the direction of his hand" (Sforno on Genesis 48:18:1, Munk translation, CC-BY).

The corpus records forty rabbinic locators on this chapter, thirty-six of them Midrash and four Talmud. Bereshit Rabbati is cited at Parashat Vayechi 2, 4, 5, 52 and 53, and Midrash Tanchuma three times, at Vayechi 2:4 and 8:2 and at Bamidbar 12:1. Aggadat Bereshit is cited at 5:1, 5:2, 40:1, 52:1, 52:3, 63:1 and 81:2, Midrash Lekach Tov at Genesis 48:8:1, 48:9:1 and 48:13:1 and at Genesis 30:37:1 and Exodus 6:3:1, and Midrash Aggadah at Genesis 48:2:1, 48:8:1 and 48:12:1. Bereshit Rabbah stands at 37:7, 65:9, 70:7, 97:4 and 97:6, Bamidbar Rabbah at 14:4, 14:5 and 14:7, and Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael at Tractate Pischa 13:18. The Ein Yaakov collection is cited twice in the Glick edition, at Horayot 1:2 and Sanhedrin 11:14, and Sefer HaYashar once at the Book of Genesis, Vayigash. The four Talmud locators fall on the adoption of the two boys and on the portion Jacob gives Joseph above his brothers: Bava Metzia 87a:15 at the news of the illness, Bava Batra 123a:10 at the adoption and 123a:6 at the extra portion, and Avodah Zarah 25a:2 at the setting of the younger before the elder.