Genesis 48:16
ESV - 16 The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the boys; and in them let my name be carried on, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.
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This is the birthright ceremony. Because scripture does not anywhere explicitly state this to be so we must tease this information and its meaning from a number of other texts, the first and most important of which is 1 Chr 5:1, which states explicitly that the sons of Joseph received the birthright. Many Christians completely ignore this verse and leave it entirely out of all theology and prophecy interpretation. So, the sons of Joseph received the birthright and in that ceremony Jacob/Israel said the name was the primary sign of the birthright. These two boys and their descendants are the only people with the legal right to this name. I had always assumed that since Judah had the scepter (with an important time limiting factor of "until Shiloh comes," (Gen 49:10). This means Judah's right was time limited. There is no such limit placed on Joseph's right. I had wondered why, when the kingdom split after Solomon's death, why the Northern Kingdom took the name of Israel. It took the name because only the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh had the right to that name and they were in the northern Kingdom. The first kings of Israel came from the tribe of Ephraim, the superior of those two tribes by Jacob's declaration (Gen 48:14-20.) God later took the name from them by having the surrounding nations call them "House of Omri", but he never gave the birthright or its name to Judah as is generally taught. The birthright was to be restored to Israel according to the prophecies of Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, among others. The nation of Judah will be destroyed, never to to be rebuilt according to Jeremiah 19, and Ezekiel 36 prophesies of the regathering of ISRAEL, not Judah, and in chapter 37 tells us how Judah will be destroyed as a nation, never to rise again. In this prophecy we are told that Israel will be regathered into the Promised Land and rejoined with Judah under one king, a descendant of David. Now, this does not mean that they will all now be the nation of Judah? We must look at other prophecies to understand this. Jeremiah 18 says they will be a reformed Israel, and there is a prophecy in 1 Kings 11 that also clarifies this. In 1Kg 11 God told Jeroboam that after Solomon's death God would take the KINGDOM from Solomon's son and give it to him. One tribe, Benjamin, would be left to Judah so that it would not be without a Kingdom, but the Kingdom itself would be removed from the house of David. Thus the birthright is further defined as not only the name, but as the Kingdom (the land and its occupants) too. Because of Solomon's sins and Rehoboam's refusal to repent of them the tribe of Judah lost its association with the birthright and the Kingdom that embodies the birthright, not received the birthright from the northern kingdom as most prophecy teachers today teach. Through his parables Jesus taught us that he received the throne rights by his death on the cross, but that he must still go to a far country to receive his kingdom (Luke 19:12). When he returns he will be married to his kingdom (his body the church), the stone kingdom (Daniel 2:34, 44) which will then eventually grow to fill the whole world. At that time Judah will be absorbed into the Kingdom of Israel and be ruled by the King of the House of Judah under the birthright name. A further prophecy that points to this shows Jesus returning as a son of Joseph, not a son of Judah. The first coming required that he come as the son of David (a son of Judah) to receive the scepter, but when he returns to claim his kingdom he comes with his robe dipped in blood. Rev 19:13 makes this claim and is a direct prophetic reference to Gen 37:31, which is the only reference anywhere else in the Bible to someone's robe being dipped in blood. Jesus returns as a son of Joseph with the claim to the birthright (Kingdom) and its name (Israel). This is what Jacob meant when he said, "Let my name be named on them."
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