The fatherly care and tender love of our Lord Jesus Christ was eminently displayed in that pleading prayer he poured out for his people at his parting with them. It belonged to the priest and father of the family to bless the rest, especially when he was to be separated from them by death. This was a rite in Israel. When good Jacob was grown old, and the time came that he would be gathered to his fathers, then he blessed Joseph and his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, “May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm—may he bless these boys” (Gen. 48:15–16). This was a prophetic and patriarchal blessing—not that Jacob could bless as God blesses. He could speak the words of blessing, but he knew that the effect, the real blessing itself, depended on God. Now when Jesus Christ comes to die, he will bless his children also and in this will reveal how much dear and tender love he has for them: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love” (John 13:1). The last act of Christ in this world was an act of blessing (Luke 24:50–51).  – John Flavel

 Diana Wallis, Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church’s Great Preachers, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2001), 85.