Genesis 48:12

Brought them out from between his knees— We must suppose Jacob to be sitting upon his bed, with his legs upon the ground, see ch. Genesis 49:33. and the children standing between his knees, while he embraced them; whence Joseph took them to dispose them properly for the reception of his father's blessing; for which purpose he seems himself to have kneeled down by his father, and to have ordered his sons to do the same, placing them in such a manner, that Jacob's right hand might be laid upon the eldest; for the right hand, as strongest, has commonly been esteemed and used as most honourable.

Bowed himself— Joseph's duty and honour towards his father are among the brightest ornaments of his character. A writer has well remarked upon it, that, "highly exalted as he was in the court of the greatest monarch upon earth, he thought it no lessening to bend before his aged father, and pay him all the marks of submission and duty; nay, and this at a time when the text assures us Jacob's eyes were dim, and could not see; and consequently, when he could not be upbraided by his father for want of due respect, and, probably, would not have been blamed by any other mortal; for who would have been so vain as to censure the conduct of one who was at that time in the highest reputation for wisdom and prudence of all mortals then alive? Or, if their vanity could have carried them to censure his conduct, their fear of Pharaoh's first minister would certainly have obliged them to keep their thoughts to themselves; yet, under all these circumstances of his father's blindness, his own exalted station, unrivalled wisdom, and uncontrolled power, Joseph's affection and dutiful heart would not suffer him to dispense with the least form of respect and veneration to his aged parent: for we read, that when he brought his sons to present them to his father, he bowed himself with his face to the earth. And, surely, there is not any one circumstance of his grandeur which reflects half so much lustre on his character as this single instance of filial humiliation. When I consider him upon his knees to God, I regard him as a poor mortal in the discharge of duty to his Creator, of adorable majesty, and infinite height above himself! When I behold him bowing down to Pharaoh, I consider him in the dutiful posture of a subject to his prince, to whom he was indebted for the highest exaltation and honour. But when I see him bending to the earth, before a poor, old, blind, decrepit father, I behold him with admiration and delight. How doth that humiliation exalt him!" &c. See Delaney's Sermons, p. 147.