The Horns of the Wild Ox: The Blessing of Joseph Text: Deuteronomy 33:13-17
Introduction: The War on Blessing
We live in an age that is deeply confused about blessing. On the one hand, our entire consumer culture is a frantic, desperate pursuit of it. We want the bigger house, the faster car, the more exotic vacation. We want the good life. But on the other hand, we are riddled with guilt about it. We are told by our secular priests that human prosperity is a cancer on the planet. To be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it, is now considered the great sin against Mother Gaia. This has seeped into the church, creating a kind of gnostic piety that is suspicious of any blessing you can weigh or measure. The truly spiritual life, some seem to think, is one of perpetual scarcity and retreat.
Into this muddle, the Word of God speaks with robust, earthy clarity. God is not an ethereal mystic. He is the Creator of heaven and earth, and He delights in the prosperity of His people. The blessings of God are not limited to the sweet by and by; they are for the here and now. They are tangible. They have heft. You can taste them, feel them, and build with them.
The blessing that Moses pronounces upon the tribes of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, is a direct assault on this anemic, fearful view of the world. This is not a blessing of quiet contemplation in a monastery. This is a blessing of agricultural abundance, geological riches, and military might. It is a blessing of dominion. It is a declaration that the favor of the covenant God results in a real, measurable, and powerful impact on the created order. This is a picture of what God intends for His people, a people who are not in retreat from the world, but who are actively inheriting it.
The Text
Of Joseph he said, "Blessed of Yahweh be his land, With the choice things of heaven, with the dew, And from the deep lying beneath, And with the choice produce of the sun, And with the choice yield of the months, And with the best things of the ancient mountains, And with the choice things of the everlasting hills, And with the choice things of the earth and its fullness, And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush. Let it come to the head of Joseph, And to the top of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers. As the firstborn of his ox, splendor is his, And his horns are the horns of the wild ox; With them he will push the peoples, All at once, to the ends of the earth. And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim, And those are the thousands of Manasseh."
(Deuteronomy 33:13-17 LSB)
The Fountain of Favor (vv. 13, 16)
The blessing begins and is centered on its source. All the material prosperity described here is a consequence, not the cause. The cause is the unmerited favor of God.
"Blessed of Yahweh be his land... And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush." (Deuteronomy 33:13a, 16b)
Notice the bookends. The blessing is from Yahweh, and it is defined as the favor of Yahweh. Everything in between, the dew, the deep, the sun, the mountains, is simply the outworking of this foundational reality. The word for favor here is ratson, which means good pleasure, delight, acceptance. This is not a reluctant, begrudging provision. This is the enthusiastic, joyful outpouring of a God who loves to give good gifts to His children.
And who is this God? He is "Him who dwelt in the bush." This is a direct reference to the burning bush in Exodus 3, where God revealed His covenant name, Yahweh, to Moses. This is crucial. The God of the burning bush is a consuming fire, holy and transcendent. But He is also the God who dwells with His people, who enters into their affliction, and who makes Himself known. The source of all cosmic fruitfulness is the personal, covenant-keeping God of redemption. He is not an impersonal force. He is not the universe. He is the Lord who spoke from the fire. To receive His blessing is to be in right relationship with Him. To seek the blessing without the Blesser is the definition of idolatry. Our world is full of people trying to get the gifts without the Giver, but it cannot be done. All blessing flows from His ratson, His good pleasure.
The Shape of Blessing (vv. 13-16a)
When the favor of God is poured out, what does it look like? Moses gives us a breathtaking, top to bottom inventory of comprehensive blessing.
"With the choice things of heaven, with the dew, And from the deep lying beneath, And with the choice produce of the sun, And with the choice yield of the months, And with the best things of the ancient mountains, And with the choice things of the everlasting hills, And with the choice things of the earth and its fullness..." (Deuteronomy 33:13b-16a LSB)
This is a systematic tour of the cosmos. The blessing comes from above, "the choice things of heaven, with the dew." It comes from below, "from the deep lying beneath," meaning the springs and groundwater that sustain life. It comes from the cycles of time, "the choice produce of the sun, and with the choice yield of the months." This is agricultural abundance, a reliable harvest tied to God's faithful ordering of the seasons.
But it goes deeper. The blessing comes from the very foundations of the earth, "the best things of the ancient mountains, and with the choice things of the everlasting hills." This refers to mineral wealth, lumber, stone, all the raw materials needed to build a civilization. God's blessing is not just for sustenance, but for culture-building. He provides not just the crops for the farm, but the ore for the forge and the stone for the temple.
This is a total repudiation of any gnostic worldview that despises the material world. God made all this stuff. He called it good. And He delights to pour it out upon His people. This is God's design. He does not want His people to be impoverished and sterile. He wants them to be fruitful, prosperous, and generous, enjoying the fullness of the good world He has made. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof, and He gives it to whom He pleases.
The Crowned Head (v. 16c)
This immense blessing is directed to a specific person, a specific head.
"Let it come to the head of Joseph, And to the top of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers." (Deuteronomy 33:16c LSB)
This echoes Jacob's prophecy in Genesis 49. The blessing is to rest upon the head of Joseph. Why? Because he was the "one distinguished among his brothers." The Hebrew word is nazir, the same root as Nazirite. It means one who is separated, consecrated, set apart. Joseph was set apart by his father's favor, which earned him his brothers' hatred. He was set apart by being thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. He was set apart in Potiphar's house and then set apart again in Pharaoh's prison. He was the separated one, the rejected one.
But his separation for suffering led to his separation for glory. He was exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh and became the savior of his family and of the known world. This makes Joseph one of the clearest types of Christ in all of Scripture. Jesus is the ultimate Nazirite, the truly distinguished one. He was separated from His Father in His incarnation, rejected by His own brothers, and consecrated to death on the cross. And because of His humiliation, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. All the blessings of God, all the fullness of the cosmos, are designed to come and rest upon the head of Jesus Christ. And the glorious news of the gospel is that when we are united to Him by faith, we are seated with Him in the heavenly places, and that blessing that crowns His head cascades down upon us, His body.
The Force of Blessing (v. 17)
This blessing is not passive. It is not for quiet enjoyment alone. This blessing has teeth, and it has horns. It is a force for dominion.
"As the firstborn of his ox, splendor is his, And his horns are the horns of the wild ox; With them he will push the peoples, All at once, to the ends of the earth. And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim, And those are the thousands of Manasseh." (Deuteronomy 33:17 LSB)
The imagery shifts from pastoral and agricultural to military. Joseph's strength is like that of a firstborn ox, a symbol of power and wealth. His horns, the biblical symbol of strength and kingly authority, are like those of a wild ox. And what are these horns for? "With them he will push the peoples." This is the language of conquest, of taking ground, of exercising dominion.
The blessing of God is not a defensive crouch. It is an offensive charge. God blesses His people so that they might be a blessing, and part of that is pushing back the chaos and darkness of the unbelieving world. For Israel, this had a direct physical and military application as they took the promised land. For the Church, the New Israel, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Cor. 10:4). We push back the darkness with the proclamation of the gospel, with the planting of churches, with the building of Christian families and institutions. The blessing of God empowers us for the Great Commission.
Notice the confident, postmillennial scope of it: "to the ends of the earth." This is not a small, tribal ambition. The blessing of Joseph is a world-conquering blessing. And it will be wildly successful, resulting in "ten thousands of Ephraim" and "thousands of Manasseh." This is a vision of explosive, victorious growth. The kingdom of God is not a losing enterprise. It is a conquering army, fueled by the favor of the God of the burning bush, and it will not stop pushing until the ends of the earth have been brought under the dominion of Christ.
Conclusion: From Joseph to Jesus
This magnificent blessing given to Joseph is a portrait of the gospel. In our natural state, we are cursed and impoverished, separated from God's favor. But God sent His Son, the true and better Joseph, the one distinguished and rejected by His brothers.
He was separated unto death, so that we might be brought near to God. The fullness of God's blessing, the choicest things of heaven and earth, has been placed upon His head. And now, through faith in Him, we are adopted into God's family and become co-heirs of this magnificent inheritance. The favor of Him who dwelt in the bush is now upon us.
Therefore, we should not live with a scarcity mindset. We should not be timid or apologetic. We have been blessed in order to be a force for blessing in the world. We are to receive the dew of heaven, the fruit of the earth, and the strength of the wild ox with thanksgiving. And we are to use it all to push. We are to push back against the darkness in our own hearts, in our homes, in our communities, and to the ends of the earth, until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.