And he blessed them that day, saying, In you shall Israel bless, saying, God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.
All Commentaries on Genesis 48:20 Go To Genesis 48
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Do you see how God’s grace foretold this to him and how, moved by a prophetic spirit, he blessed Joseph’s sons in this way, foreseeing as already present and visible to the brothers what would happen so long afterward? This is what prophecy is like, after all. Just as the eyes of the body can form an image of nothing beyond visible things, so the eyes of faith do not see visible things but form an image of things that are due to happen many generations later. You will gain a more precise notion of this from the blessings he bestows on his own sons.
