By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Both the sons - Greek, 'each of the sons' (Genesis 47:29; Genesis 48:8-20; Genesis 48:22). He could not distinguish Joseph's sons by sight, yet he did by faith, transposing his hands intentionally, so as to lay his right hand on the younger, Ephraim, whose posterity was to be greater than that of Manasseh. He also adopted these grandchildren as his own sons, having transferred the primogeniture to Joseph.
And worshipped ... This did not take place in connection with the foregoing, but before it, when Jacob made Joseph swear that he would bury him with his fathers in Canaan, not in Egypt. The assurance that Joseph would do so filled him with pious gratitude to God, which he expressed by raising himself on his bed to an attitude of worship. His faith as Joseph's (Hebrews 11:22), consisted in his so confidently anticipating the fulfillment of God's promise of Canaan to his descendants, as to desire to be buried there as his proper possession.
Leaning upon the top of his staff - Genesis 47:31, Hebrew and English version, 'upon the bed's head.' The Septuagint translate as Paul Jerome reprobates the notion that Jacob worshipped the top of Joseph's staff, having on it an image of Joseph's power - i:e., bowed in recognition of the future sovereignty of his son's tribe: the father bowing to the son! The Hebrew sets it aside: the bed is alluded to afterward (Genesis 48:2; Genesis 49:33). Probably Jacob turned himself in bed so as to have his face toward the pillow, Isaiah 38:2 (there are no bedsteads in the East). Paul, by adopting the Septuagint version, brings out, under the Spirit, an additional fact-namely, that the aged patriarch used his own (not Joseph's) staff to lean on in worshipping on his bed. The staff was the emblem of his pilgrim state on his way to his heavenly city (Hebrews 11:13-14), wherein God had so wonderfully supported him. Genesis 32:10, "With my staff I passed over Jordan, and now I am become," etc. (cf. Exodus 12:11; Mark 6:8.) So (1 Kings 1:47) David 'bowed on his bed,' in adoring thanksgiving for God's favour to his son, before death. Paul omits the chief blessing of Jacob's twelve sons, because 'he plucks only the flowers by his way, and leaves the whole meadow full to his readers' (Delitzsch in Alford).