Genesis 48:4

And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Behold, I will make thee fruitful. This is a repetition of the covenant (Genesis 28:13-15; Genesis 35:12). These words were spoken first by his father in his parting blessing (Genesis 28:3), and repeated, it seems, to Jacob in his dream at Luz, though the circumstance is not related in the narrative of that extraordinary dream. Whether they are to be viewed in a limited sense, as pointing to the many centuries during which the Jews were occupiers of the Holy Land, or whether the words bear a wider meaning, and intimate that the scattered tribes of Israel are to be reinstated in the land of promise, as their "everlasting possession," are points that have not yet been satisfactorily determined.