Genesis 48:1

1. After these things Probably soon after the events narrated at the close of the previous chapter .

Thy father is sick Extreme old age, accompanied by any unusual symptoms of physical disorder, would excite attention, and admonish Jacob’s children that the day of his death was near at hand. Accordingly, as soon as Joseph heard the report of his father’s illness he took with him his two sons, and hastened to his bedside. It is possible Joseph feared that the two sons here named, having been born in Egypt and of an Egyptian woman, might not be allowed full inheritance among the sons of Israel. So he would have them obtain the holy patriarch’s blessing ere he died. Manasseh and Ephraim “are here mentioned, as was natural, in the order of age, but the tribes were always designated as Ephraim and Manasseh, since there were ‘ten thousands of Ephraim, and thousands of Manasseh.’ Deuteronomy 33:17. Joseph came not simply to pay his dying father a visit of sympathy and affection, but to receive his blessing, and to have his children formally recognised as heirs of the covenant promises from which their Egyptian birth had alienated them for a time . Joseph here remarkably reveals his characteristic faith, and his keen moral and spiritual sense . An Egyptian prince, and the highest subject of Pharaoh, honours and wealth without stint were within his reach for his children; buthe turned away from wealth and power in his manhood, as he had from sinful pleasure in his youth . The family pride that has ruined so many virtuous men had no blandishments for him. His sons were never presented for preferment among the princes of Pharaoh, for he saw grander dignities and riches for them among the despised shepherds of Goshen than could be conferred in the courts of the Pharaohs. He presented his children to be blessed and adopted into the patriarchal family.” Newhall.