Adoption is a beautiful thing. I have seen several families that decided to adopt a child for various reasons (or multiple children), and almost always it’s a blessing that pays itself back time and time again.
Normally though, in those circumstances, it’s because the biological parents aren’t able to care for the child. Jacob’s “adoption” of Joseph’s kids is totally different – Joseph is still alive and very much capable of raising his own children.
So why then does Jacob, on his deathbed, take Ephraim and Manasseh and claim them as his own?
If you’ve read farther along in Scripture, you know that the names of the twelve tribes of Israel include Ephraim and Manasseh, while omitting two of Jacob’s children, Joseph and Levi.
Levi’s “inheritance” is different from the others. Even though he’s still a tribe unto himself, he doesn’t have any land to speak of. Instead, his physical inheritance will consist of a series of cities, consistent with their status as the priestly tribe (Joshua 21).
The reason Joseph is not included isn’t because he was punished, but because he was blessed. Instead of having one inheritance among the tribe, he gets two: the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. This explains why there are still 12 tribes, even though there are technically – after this adoption – fourteen sons of Israel in all.
This type of adoption is different than what we experience today. In ancient times – and even in some cultures today – it wasn’t uncommon to adopt someone solely for the purpose of passing along an inheritance. In Genesis 15:2-3, Abraham claims that the “heir of his house” is a man named Eliezer.
The cynic in me wants to argue that the reason that Jacob gave Joseph a double blessing was because he was the favorite. Jacob did give him a coat of many colors, after all.
But the real reason is that Joseph had essentially replaced his older brother Reuben as the honorific head of the family. In 1 Chronicles 5:1, the writer explicitly states that the birthright was given to the sons of Joseph because Reuben “defiled his father’s bed.” For more on that, see Genesis 35:22.
First sons were always given a double portion of the inheritance (Deuteronomy 21:15-17). Even though Reuben was technically the firstborn, because of his sin, Joseph moved to the front of the line, which meant he had a double portion of the inheritance of Jacob.
