Miketz - Mashiach ben Yosef
The Torah portion of Miketz had quite a few connections to the Messiah. The second son of Yosef had a direct line to the messiah. The things that happened during Yosef’s time in Egypt pointed to the coming Messiah. And Yosef’s rule over Egypt and the known world set a pattern for the Messiah to follow.
In this Torah portion, Yosef and his wife had two children. Yosef named his first son “Menasheh”, after the word “forgetful-ness” in Hebrew. Yosef explained this name in Genesis 41:51, “For God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.” Yosef’s second son, Ephraim, was named after the phrase, “double fruitful” in Hebrew. Yosef explains this meaning in Genesis 41:51 as well, “for God hath made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.” The Targum paraphrases the meaning of Ephraim’s name in order to connect it with the suffering of Yosef and the suffering of Israel in Exile. Yosef predicts that God will make Israel mighty in the land of their affliction, just as God made Yosef mighty in the land of his affliction.
When Yosef’s father blessed Menasheh and Ephraim, he switched his hands, and gave Ephraim the birthright, even though he wasn’t the first born. The birthright that Ephraim received is a precursor to all of the great things the tribe of Ephraim would accomplish. The tribes of Yehudah and Ephraim fought over the leadership of Israel, and eventually Jeroboam the Ephraimite, led a rebellion against Yehudah and the house of David, splitting Israel into two kingdoms: The kingdom of Yehuda, ruled by the tribe of Yehudah, and the kingdom of Israel, ruled by the tribe of Ephraim. The prophets sometimes referred to Ephraim’s kingdom as the house of Yosef or the Kingdom of Ephraim.
God gave Jeroboam, the first Ephraimite king of Israel, the promise of an everlasting dynasty like David from the tribe of Yehudah, and with that same promise, the potential of bringing forth the Messiah, messiah son of Yosef. This explains why the Midrash sometimes refers to the Messiah as “Ephraim”, as it does in these two texts:
“When Satan saw the Messiah, he trembled and fell on his face and said: ‘Surely this is the Messiah who in the future will cast me and all the princes of the nations of the world into Gehenna ...’ In that hour the nations became awestruck and said before the Lord: ‘Master of the world! Who is he into whose hand we will fall, what is his name and what is his nature?’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said to them: ‘His name is Ephraim, My True Messiah. He will raise his stature and the stature of his generation, and will light up the eyes of Israel, and will save his people, and no nation and language will be able to stand up against him.’”
“In that hour The Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: “Ephraim, My True Messiah, you have already accepted [this suffering] from the six days of Creation. Now your suffering will be like my suffering.”
In Genesis 41:57 it says, “And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn; because the famine was sore in all the earth.” Yosef provided salvation for “all the earth”, just as the coming messiah will provide salvation in the future. As it says in Isaiah 11:10, “The root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples, Unto him shall the nations seek;” Yeshua is estranged from most of his brothers as the nations come to him for salvation, just as Yosef was estranged from his family as he saved the land from famine.
It says in Romans 11:25, “That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles comes.” Ever since the days of Yeshua on this earth, all peoples have been coming to repentance. As it says in Isaiah 52:10, “The LORD hath made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations; And all the ends of the earth shall see The salvation of our God.”
Yosef became ruler over the entire world, or at least, the entire known world. All the people of Egypt and all the surrounding nations came to Yosef to buy grain. Even his brothers came to buy grain from him. As it says in Genesis 42:6:
“And Joseph was the governor over the land; he it was that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down to him with their faces to the earth.”
This situation points towards the Messianic Era. All the nations will travel to Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) to pay tribute to the Messiah. The nations will say to another, “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Ya’akov, that He may teach us about His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.” Then the Torah will go out from Zion, and the Messiah will rule over the world.
It says in the Yalkut Moshiach:
“The beginning of the redemption will be the coming of Messiah son of Yosef. And this is [the son of Yosef] who will be “ruler over the earth” from Yerushalayim. He will be the one who sells grain, which is a term for [the teaching and revelation of] Hashem.”
May Hashem bring Mashiach back soon and in our days!
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