What Does Genesis 48:20 Mean?
And he blessed them that day, saying, In you shall Israel bless, saying, May God set you like Ephraim and like Manasseh; and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And he blessed them that day, saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.THE KEY
The blessing names both brothers, then places the younger first, making reversal part of the blessing itself.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks into inherited order now: both brothers remain inside the blessing, while Ephraim is deliberately placed first. Their names carry fruitfulness and forgetting, so the blessing holds both without making their places identical.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the eldest must always stand first: the verse explicitly places Ephraim before Manasseh.
THE ROOT
וַיְבָרֶךְ
vayevarekh
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; in the same word family, to bend the knee.
“bless” in this verse is vayevarekh. English can make “blessed” sound like a favorable label, while its Hebrew word family also holds the image of a bent knee. Here blessing is spoken and enacted: Israel gives the brothers a shared formula, then sets their order.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The bodily image in the word family gives blessing a posture of honoring.
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
The noun names the blessing that Israel is to speak over others in this verse.
אֶפְרַיִם
Efrayim
GROWS FROM
פרה
To be fruitful, to bear fruit.
Ephraim’s name carries fruitfulness; Genesis 41:52 links it to God making Joseph fruitful in affliction. Here that name is spoken first, and the younger brother is given precedence without the older being removed from the blessing.
ALSO GROWS
parah: Be fruitful
פָּרָה
This verb expresses the nature carried in Ephraim’s name.
peri: Fruit
פְּרִי
The fruit is the visible outcome of the root’s bearing and growth.
מְנַשֶּׁה
Menasheh
GROWS FROM
נשה
To forget; to cause to forget.
Manasseh’s name carries forgetting, which Genesis 41:51 connects with forgetting toil and the past. Here the name remains within the blessing even as Ephraim is placed before him: changed order does not erase the other brother.
ALSO GROWS
nashani: He made me forget
נַשַּׁנִי
This form explains the meaning carried by Manasseh’s name in Genesis 41:51.
Menasheh: Manasseh; one who causes forgetting
מְנַשֶּׁה
The name’s root meaning is spoken as part of the same blessing, though Ephraim receives the first place.
THE PATTERN
The expected order of precedence can be overturned while those named within the blessing remain included.
And the LORD said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples shall be parted from your innermost parts; the one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the great shall serve the small.He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.THE THREAD
And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and be a blessing.The same Hebrew root carries both the act of blessing and the word “blessing” itself. Genesis 12:2 links receiving a blessing with becoming one; here Israel speaks a blessing meant to become a repeated pattern.
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