Commentary - Hebrews 11:20-22

Bird's-eye view

In this brief section of Hebrews 11, the author continues his great muster roll of the faithful. Having just detailed the staggering faith of Abraham, he now moves to the next three generations of the covenant line: Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Each man is presented at the very end of his life, and each act of faith is profoundly forward-looking. This is not a faith for the here and now only, but a faith that lays hold of God's sworn promises for generations yet to come. Isaac blesses his sons concerning "things to come." Jacob, while dying, blesses Joseph's sons and worships, leaning on his staff. Joseph, also at his end, looks past his own death to the great Exodus God had promised. The faith commended here is a dying faith, a patriarch's faith, a faith that is entirely wrapped up in the covenant promises of God for his people. It is a faith that sees the future because it rests on the word of the God who holds the future.

What we see here is the ordinary, plodding, generational nature of covenant faithfulness. These are not flashy miracles. These are fathers, on their deathbeds, passing on the promised blessing of God to their children and grandchildren. This is the very heart of how God builds His kingdom, not through isolated acts of individual piety, but through the long, slow, and sometimes messy business of covenant succession. Faith believes God's promises, speaks them over the next generation, and dies with the confident expectation that God will be faithful to perform what He has sworn.

Outline

Context In Hebrews

This passage sits squarely in the middle of the "Hall of Faith." The author's purpose throughout this chapter is to exhort his readers to persevere in their own faith by providing them with a great cloud of witnesses from the Old Testament. These are not examples of perfect people, but of people whose lives were defined by their trust in God's promises, even when they could not see the fulfillment. The immediate context is the story of Abraham's faith (vv. 8-19), and these next three verses show how that same faith was passed down through his descendants.

The emphasis is on faith that looks to the future. The patriarchs "all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar" (Heb. 11:13). The actions of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are prime examples of this very thing. Their final acts were not about settling their own affairs, but about ordering the future of God's people according to God's word. This would have been a powerful encouragement to the original audience of Hebrews, who were tempted to fall away from Christ and return to the shadows of the old covenant. They too were called to live by faith in a promise whose ultimate fulfillment was yet to come.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Hebrews 11:20

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come.

Now, the first thing to note is that the faith of Isaac is demonstrated in an episode that is, to put it mildly, a tangled mess. If you recall the story in Genesis 27, it involves deception, favoritism, and carnal appetites. Isaac wanted to bless Esau, his favorite, while Rebekah conspired to have Jacob, her favorite, steal the blessing. Isaac is old, blind, and seemingly manipulated by his wife and younger son. And yet, the author of Hebrews holds this up as an act of faith. How can this be?

The key is in the final clause: "regarding things to come." Isaac was not just expressing fatherly affection or dispensing earthly property. He was acting as a patriarch, a covenant head, dispensing the very blessing of God promised to Abraham. Despite his own flawed intentions and the chaos surrounding the event, Isaac believed in the reality and power of that blessing. He knew he was handling holy things. When he pronounced the blessing, he was speaking prophetically about the future of his sons and their descendants. He was laying hold of God's covenant promise and applying it.

Even after the deception was revealed, Isaac trembled violently, but he did not, and could not, retract the blessing from Jacob. "I have blessed him; and yes, he shall be blessed" (Gen. 27:33). In that moment, Isaac submitted to the sovereign will of God, which had overruled his own fleshly preference. His faith was not in his own wisdom or ability to manage his family, but in the God who had made the promise. He believed God's word would come to pass, even when it came to pass through his own sin and folly. This is a profound comfort. God's covenant purposes are not thwarted by our bungling. Isaac, in the end, believed that God's word of blessing had real power to shape the future, and so he blessed both his sons concerning things to come, and in so doing, acted by faith.

Hebrews 11:21

By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and WORSHIPED, leaning ON THE TOP OF HIS STAFF.

Next in line is Jacob, and like his father, his great act of faith is recorded at the end of his life. Jacob's life was one of striving, wrestling, and trickery. But here, at the end, we see a man at peace, his faith fixed on the future of God's people. The incident referred to is in Genesis 48. Joseph brings his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to his father's deathbed for a blessing. Jacob, though his eyes are dim with age, has clear spiritual sight. He deliberately crosses his hands, placing his right hand on Ephraim, the younger, and his left on Manasseh, the elder, signifying that the greater blessing would go to the younger. Joseph tries to correct him, but Jacob refuses, saying, "I know, my son, I know" (Gen. 48:19). He was acting with prophetic insight given by God.

This was faith because Jacob was looking beyond the natural order of things, beyond primogeniture, to the sovereign elective purposes of God. He was not simply blessing his grandsons; he was adopting them as his own sons, elevating them to the status of tribal heads in Israel. He was arranging the future of the twelve tribes by faith in God's promise.

And notice what accompanies this act of faith: worship. "And [he] worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff." This detail comes from the Septuagint translation of Genesis 47:31. The Hebrew text says he "bowed himself upon the head of the bed." Both are possible, and both point to the same reality. Whether on his bed or on his staff, the dying patriarch, frail and weak, bows in worship to the God of the covenant. His staff was the symbol of his long pilgrimage, his sojourning life. He had leaned on it for physical support for many years, but in his final moments, he leans on it as an act of worship, demonstrating his utter dependence on God. His life of wrestling was over, and he ended it in worship, confident that the God who had been with him all his life would carry his promises forward into the next generation and beyond. This is what faith does. It blesses the future and worships God for it.

Hebrews 11:22

By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel, and gave commands concerning his bones.

Finally, we come to Joseph. Here is a man who rose to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. He had everything the world could offer: wealth, power, prestige. He could have established his family as a permanent Egyptian dynasty. But on his deathbed, his mind was not on Egypt. His mind was on the promise of God. By faith, he looked forward hundreds of years to the Exodus.

His final words to his brothers were not words of sentiment, but words of prophetic certainty. "God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (Gen. 50:24). This was a stunning act of faith. He saw the future deliverance of Israel not as a possibility, but as a certainty, because God had sworn it. His entire identity was wrapped up, not in his Egyptian success, but in his place among the people of God and their promised future.

And to anchor this faith in a tangible, concrete reality, he "gave commands concerning his bones." He made the sons of Israel swear an oath that when God brought them out of Egypt, they would carry his bones with them and bury them in the Promised Land (Gen. 50:25). This was more than a sentimental request. It was a sermon in a coffin. For the next few centuries, Joseph's mummy, kept by the Israelites in Egypt, was a silent, powerful testimony. It was a constant reminder that Egypt was not their home. It was a pointer to the promise. It was a declaration of faith that God keeps His word. And they obeyed. When the Exodus finally happened, Moses took the bones of Joseph with him (Ex. 13:19), and they were eventually buried in Shechem (Josh. 24:32). Joseph's faith was a long-range faith, a faith that staked everything on a promise that would only be fulfilled long after he was dead. This is the nature of true biblical faith. It lives and dies with its eyes fixed on the promises of God.

Application

The faith of these patriarchs challenges us on several fronts. First, it reminds us that faith is fundamentally generational. We are not called to be spiritual islands. We have a responsibility to believe God's covenant promises for our children and our children's children, to bless them, and to instruct them in the ways of the Lord. Our faith ought to be concerned with "things to come," with the future of Christ's kingdom long after we are gone.

Second, it shows us that true faith often does its most important work at the end of life. These men finished well. In their weakness, on their deathbeds, their faith was sharp and clear. They were not focused on their own comfort or legacy in this world, but on the faithfulness of God. This is how we should desire to finish, with our last acts being acts of faith, worship, and prophetic confidence in the promises of God.

Finally, the faith of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph was a faith fixed on a promise and a place they would not see in their lifetime. They looked for a heavenly country. Joseph's bones were a testament that our ultimate hope is not in the Egypt of this world, with all its power and comforts. Our home is elsewhere. We are pilgrims, and our hope is in the resurrection and the city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. We are to live now in light of that future reality, just as they did, trusting the God who has promised it, the God who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, and who will surely bring all His people home.