The Life of Jacob (30): Dying Jacob Visited Twice by Joseph (Genesis 47:27-48:22) by Rev. Angus Stewart
I. Visit 1: the Vow Regarding Jacob's Burial
II. Visit 2: The Blessing of Jacob's Grandsons
George Lawson: “Children should obey and honour their parents as long as they live. But parents are not to expect the same degree of obedience from them in every part of life; because, in the progress of reason, and of human affairs, children are entitled to new privileges, and laid under obligations to new duties. They have a right, when they come to the years of maturity, to judge for themselves concerning matters in which they were formerly bound to acquiesce in the judgment of their parents. They enter into new connexions, the duties of which are not less sacred than those which they owed to their parents. Joseph was in high office under Pharaoh, and he was a husband and a father. Jacob had no right to demand anything from him that he could not perform consistently with the duties of these relations. Even when parents have a right to command, it will be no diminution of their dignity in many cases to entreat. Paul was the spiritual father of Philemon, and when he might have commanded him to comply with his desires in favour of Onesimus, yet, for love’s sake, he rather besought him” (The History of Joseph, p. 390).