Before Jacob died, Joseph brought his two sons to him to receive his blessing,—­Manasseh and Ephraim, born in Egypt, whose grandfather was the high-priest of On, the city of the sun.  As Manasseh was the oldest, he placed him at the right hand of Jacob, but the old man wittingly and designedly laid his right hand on Ephraim, which displeased Joseph.  But Jacob, without giving his reason, persisted.  While he prophesied that Manasseh should be great, Ephraim he said should be greater,—­verified in the fact that the tribe of Ephraim was the largest of all the tribes, and the most powerful until the captivity.  It was nearly as large as all the rest together, although in the time of Moses the tribe of Manasseh had become more numerous.  We cannot penetrate the reason why Ephraim the younger son was preferred to the older, any more than why Jacob was preferred to Esau.  After Jacob had blessed the sons of Joseph, he called his other sons around his dying bed to predict the future of their descendants.  Reuben the oldest was told that he would not excel, because he had loved his father’s concubine and committed a grievous sin.  Simeon and Levi were the most active in seeking to compass the death of Joseph, and a curse was sent upon them.  Judah was exalted above them all, for he had sought to save Joseph, and was eloquent in pleading for Benjamin,—­the most magnanimous of the sons.  So from him it was predicted that the sceptre should not depart from his house until Shiloh should come,—­the Messiah, to whose appearance all the patriarchs looked.  And all that Jacob predicted about his sons to their remote descendants came to pass; but the highest blessing was accorded to Joseph, as was realized in the future ascendency of Ephraim.

When Jacob had made an end of his blessings and predictions he gathered up his feet into his bed and gave up the ghost, and Joseph caused him to be embalmed, as was the custom in Egypt.  When the days of public mourning were over (seventy days), Joseph obtained leave from Pharaoh to absent himself from the kingdom and his government, to bury his father according to his wish.  And he departed in great pomp, with chariots and horses, together with his brothers and a great number, and deposited the remains of Jacob in the cave of the field of Machpelah, where Abraham himself was buried, and then returned to his duties in Egypt.

It is not mentioned in the Scriptures how long Joseph retained his power as prime minister of Pharaoh, but probably until a new dynasty succeeded the throne,—­the eighteenth as it is supposed, for we are told that a new king arose who knew not Joseph.  He lived to be one hundred and ten years of age, and when he died his body was embalmed and placed in a sarcophagus, and ultimately was carried to Canaan and buried with his fathers, according to the oath or promise he exacted of his brothers.  His last recorded words were a prediction that God would bring the children of Israel out of Egypt to the land which he sware unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  On his deathbed he becomes, like his father, a prophet.  He had foretold his own future elevation when only a youth of seventeen, though only in the form of a dream, the full purport of which he did not comprehend; as an old man, about to die, he predicts the greatest blessing which could happen to his kindred,—­their restoration to the land promised unto Abraham.