What Does Genesis 48:4 Mean?

"And said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.'" The content of the Bethel covenant that Jacob quotes to Joseph contains the three core elements of the Abrahamic promise: fruitfulness (I will make you fruitful and multiply you), a people (I will make of you a company of peoples), and the land (I will give this land to your offspring for an everlasting possession). Jacob quotes the covenant promise as the ground for what he is about to do: adopt Manasseh and Ephraim as his own sons.

"A company of peoples" (Hebrew: qahal amim: assembly of peoples) is the promise of a numerous, nationally significant posterity: the same promise to Abraham (Genesis 17:4: "father of a multitude of nations"). The promise made to Abraham and renewed to Isaac and Jacob is the covenant trajectory that shapes all of Jacob's decisions about his sons and grandsons. By adopting Joseph's sons as his own, Jacob is placing them within the covenant trajectory: making them tribal heads in their own right rather than sub-members of Joseph's tribe.

The "everlasting possession" of the land promise is quoted by Jacob in Egypt: the land of Canaan is promised "to your offspring for an everlasting possession" while the entire family is settled in Goshen. The covenant promise and the present geographical reality are in tension: the family is in Egypt; the promised land is Canaan. Jacob's quoting of the "everlasting possession" clause is the dying patriarch's assertion that the Egypt situation does not override the Canaan promise. The family's presence in Egypt is sojourn; Canaan remains the eternal possession of the offspring.