Hebrews 11:21

ἕκαστον τῶν υἱῶν. “Each of the sons.” He made a marked difference between them (Genesis 48:17-19).

προσεκύνησεν ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον κ.τ.λ. In this verse there is an allusion to two separate events. The first is the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:1-20); the other an earlier occasion (Genesis 47:29-31). In our version it is rendered “And Israel bowed himself upon the bed’s head” but in the LXX. and Peshito as here, it is “upon the top of his staff.” The reason for the variation is that having no vowel points the LXX. understood the word to be matteh, “staff,” not mittah, “bed,” as in Genesis 48:2. If they were right in this view, the passage means that Jacob, rising from his bed to take the oath from Joseph, supported his aged limbs on the staff, which was a type of his pilgrimage (Genesis 32:10), and at the end of the oath bowed his head over the staff in sign of thanks and reverence to God. The Vulgate (here following the Itala) erroneously renders it adoravit fastigium virgae ejus, Jacob “adored the top of his (Joseph’s) staff,” and the verse has been quoted (e.g. by Cornelius a Lapide) in defence of image-worship! Yet in Genesis 47:31 the Vulgate has “adoravit Deum, conversus ad lectuli caput.” Probably all that is meant is that, being too feeble to rise and kneel or stand, Jacob “bowed himself upon the head of his couch” in an attitude of prayer, just as the aged David did on his deathbed (1 Kings 1:47).