https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=W9sgNt86D3k
Okay, so Elise Spinoza. So, hi Jonathan. In Genesis 27, Isaac already blind, blesses Jacob instead of Esau, who was the firstborn. And in Genesis 48, the same situation occurs in which Jacob, also blind, blesses Ephraim instead of Manasseh. Who was the firstborn? What does that mean? Now this is a really interesting, interesting story because I think that there, and I’ve talked about this with material, it’s like, there are like two interpretations of that story. And in a way, they’re opposite stories, the opposite interpretations, which is really fascinating because, so you can, you imagine that, so Jacob, okay, so Isaac is tricked, right? And he blesses Esau, right? He blesses Jacob instead of Esau. So he’s tricked into doing that. So it’s a trick. So Jacob flips the world, kind of flips the world upside down, and like a trickster takes the, kind of takes the gold, you know, like Jack, Jack in the beanstalk takes the gold from the giant, right? So he’s like, Jacob is Jack and he takes the gold that is not supposed to go to him. So that’s what happens. Now, then when Jacob blesses his sons, his grandsons, I mean, you can understand it, one, as he’s perpetuating the trick. And so the idea is that he actually crosses his hands over and he’s going to bless, he ends up blessing the younger one instead of the older. But if you read it carefully, it’s not clear. There are other, another way of interpreting it, which is that he’s rectifying the trick that, in fact, that Joseph is presenting them upside down as if he, Joseph wants to continue the, because Joseph is also kind of weirdly part of that, right? Joseph is not the oldest, it’s not the oldest. And so Joseph wants to perpetuate the blessing of the youngest, but then Jacob ends up actually, by crossing his hands, he ends up, it’s like a double flip where Joseph presents him the sons upside down to bless in the youngest first, and then Jacob double flips, crosses his hands and ends up blessing the oldest one. And it’s not clear in the text which one it is, so it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting thing. So it’s either that Jacob wants to perpetuate the upside down, or it’s that Jacob, as the kind of trickster character, has slipped the world upside down and now he’s double flipping and he’s bringing it back right side up. That’s the way, those are the two ways that I interpret that.