Jacob wanted Joseph to know that he would embrace his grandchildren fully and without reservation. Joseph, with his oath to bury Jacob in Canaan, had bridged the divide that separated him from his father, and now Jacob would reciprocate. Joseph had accepted his father’s future, in which Egypt would fade away, and now, Jacob would accept his son’s past, in which Canaan, tragically, had seemed to fade away. These children that had once been symbols of Joseph’s alienation from his father’s house—Jacob would hold them as dear as his very own.
