By Beverly Beem
A Comment on the Sabbath School Lesson for May 5–11, 2001
When Jacob is lying on his death bed, Joseph brings his two sons to him for a blessing. Joseph arranges his sons properly, putting his elder son Manasseh by Jacob’s right hand and his younger son Ephraim by Jacob’s left hand. But Jacob circumvents the careful staging and reaches his right hand across to Ephraim and his left hand across to Manasseh, inverting the blessings of the older and younger sons. Joseph corrects his father and tries to rearrange his right hand onto the head of his firstborn Manasseh to receive the blessing of the elder son. But his father knows what he is doing. He says:
I know, my son, I know. He too will become great. Nevertheless, his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a group of nations. He blessed them that day and said,
"In your name will Israel pronounce this blessing:
’May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.’"
So he put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh.
(Gen. 48:19–20 NIV)
Jacob is the younger half of probably the most celebrated case of sibling rivalry in the Bible. By trickery and fraud, he deludes his blind father Isaac into giving him the birthright belonging to Esau, the elder brother. Actually, Esau had already sold it to Jacob for a pot of lentils, but that didn’t seem to matter on the day that Isaac is ready to bestow his blessing. However, even bargains over the dinner table don’t count when God has already determined that the blessing is to go to the younger. The Lord had told Rebekah when she had felt the babies jostling inside her womb:
Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other
and the older will serve the younger.
(Gen. 25:23)
Whatever the deals between brothers, whatever the machinations to deceive an old man, God has, against all tradition and common sense, preferred the younger.
This preference for the younger brother against the older is repeated frequently in biblical narratives. Another example in the family scrapbook concerns the birth of two of Jacob’s grandsons. When Tamar gives birth to twins by her father-in-law Judah, "one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, ’This one came out first.’ But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, ’So this is how you have broken out!’ And he was named Perez [which means breach]. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah" (Gen. 38:28–30). Maybe Jacob had learned some things about God’s family dynamics when it comes time to bless the sons of Joseph.
Perez and Zerah may not be household names in the family stories preserved in the Old Testament, but they point out a clear principle. In a world in which the elder lords it over the younger, when power and prestige accompany the elder by automatic right, God operates by the opposite dynamics, preferring in his family the younger child. His blessing is not connected to hereditary privilege or material birthright. Something else has priority in the economy of God’s family.
What this something else is may remain as mysterious as God’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. It works itself out in the blessings of nations and peoples. And it works itself out in the human family’s relationship to the Heavenly Father. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger son has not simply sold his birthright, as did Esau, but also wastes it in profligate living. He has destroyed the very inheritance he had demanded so prematurely, but he returns to a royal welcome. His father dresses him in his own robes and ring, puts sandals on his feet and puts on a feast, complete with fatted calf and all the neighbors invited.
Everyone’s there—except the elder brother. His heart is firmly planted in tradition. It is the elder son who should get the party, the one who has stayed home and invested himself in the estate. He is the one who stays out on the porch while the father embraces the younger brother. But just as God did not forget the welfare of the elder in the Old Testament siblings—Ishmael is blessed; Esau is blessed; Manasseh is blessed—so the father does not forget the elder brother. The father goes out from the feast specifically to invite the elder brother in. The party isn’t complete without him. For the heart of the father to be filled, both brothers must be blessed; both must be at the table.
The ideal is expressed in Psalms 133:
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the bear,
running down on Aaron’s beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
or there the Lord bestows his blessing,
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