Genesis 48:4
◄  Genesis 48:4  ►
New International Version (©2011)
and said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers. I will make you a community of peoples, and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your descendants after you.'

New Living Translation (©2007)
He said to me, 'I will make you fruitful, and I will multiply your descendants. I will make you a multitude of nations. And I will give this land of Canaan to your descendants after you as an everlasting possession.'

English Standard Version (©2001)
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.’

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
and He said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.'

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
He said to me, 'I will make you fruitful and numerous; I will make many nations come from you, and I will give this land as an eternal possession to your future descendants.'

International Standard Version (©2012)
He told me, 'Pay attention! I'm going to make you fruitful and numerous. I'm going to build you into a vast nation of people and then I'll give this land to your descendants for an eternal possession.'

NET Bible (©2006)
He said to me, 'I am going to make you fruitful and will multiply you. I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants as an everlasting possession.'

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
He said to me, 'I will make you fertile and increase the number of your descendants so that you will become a community of people. I will give this land to your descendants as a permanent possession.'

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
And said unto me, Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people; and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.

American King James Version
And said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people; and will give this land to your seed after you for an everlasting possession.

American Standard Version
and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples, and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And he said : I will cause thee to increase and multiply, and I will make of thee a multitude of people: and I will give this land to thee, and to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Darby Bible Translation
and he said to me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

English Revised Version
and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Webster's Bible Translation
And said to me, Behold I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee, for an everlasting possession.

World English Bible
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 seed after you for an everlasting possession.'

Young's Literal Translation
and saith unto me, Lo, I am making thee fruitful, and have multiplied thee, and given thee for an assembly of peoples, and given this land to thy seed after thee, a possession age-during.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

48:1-7 The death-beds of believers, with the prayers and counsels of dying persons, are suited to make serious impressions upon the young, the gay, and the prosperous: we shall do well to take children on such occasions, when it can be done properly. If the Lord please, it is very desirable to bear our dying testimony to his truth, to his faithfulness, and the pleasantness of his ways. And one would wish so to live, as to give energy and weight to our dying exhortations. All true believers are blessed at their death, but all do not depart equally full of spiritual consolations. Jacob adopted Joseph's two sons. Let them not succeed their father, in his power and grandeur in Egypt; but let them succeed in the inheritance of the promise made to Abraham. Thus the aged dying patriarch teaches these young persons to take their lot with the people of God. He appoints each of them to be the head of a tribe. Those are worthy of double honour, who, through God's grace, break through the temptations of worldly wealth and preferment, to embrace religion in disgrace and poverty. Jacob will have Ephraim and Manasseh to know, that it is better to be low, and in the church, than high, and out of it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And said unto me, behold, I will make thee fruitful,.... In a spiritual sense, in grace and good works; in a literal sense, in an increase of worldly substance, and especially of children:

and multiply thee; make his posterity numerous as the sand of the sea:

and I will make of thee a multitude of people; a large nation, consisting of many tribes, even a company of nations, as the twelve tribes of Israel were:

and I will give this land unto thy seed after thee, for an everlasting possession; the land of Canaan, they were to possess as long as they were the people of God, and obedient to his law; by which obedience they held the land, even unto the coming of the Messiah, whom they rejected, and then they were cast out, and a "Loammi" (i.e. not my people, Hosea 1:9) written upon them, and their civil polity, as well as church state, at an end: and besides, Canaan was a type of the eternal inheritance of the saints in heaven, the spiritual Israel of God, which will be possessed by them to all eternity.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. Behold, I will make thee fruitful—This is a repetition of the covenant (Ge 28:13-15; 35:12). Whether these words are to be viewed in a limited sense, as pointing to the many centuries during which the Jews were occupiers of the Holy Land, or whether the words bear a wider meaning and intimate that the scattered tribes of Israel are to be reinstated in the land of promise, as their "everlasting possession," are points that have not yet been satisfactorily determined.

Genesis 48:4 Parallel Commentaries

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Jacob Blesses Ephraim and Manasseh
…3And Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, 4And said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful, and multiply you, and I will make of you a multitude of people; and will give this land to your seed after you for an everlasting possession. 5And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine. …

Genesis 17:8 The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
Genesis 28:3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.
Genesis 35:11 And God said to him, "I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will be among your descendants.
Exodus 1:7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
Leviticus 26:9 "'I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.
Psalm 127:3 Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.