Genesis 49:22
During Jacob’s blessing of the tribes (Genesis 49:22), he says “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over a wall.” Obviously he is speaking of the richest place to plant a tree, where its roots would be near water. The wall that the branches are going over is the well wall. What the Mormons say is that the branches are the children of Joseph and that the wall is the sea which they crossed! They justify calling the sea a wall from Nahum 3:8 which calls the sea a wall. The only trouble with the argument is that there are two different Hebrew words involved. As can be seen in the Young’s Analytical Concordance, the word for all in Nahum 3:8 means a barrier but the word in Genesis 49:22 refers to the type of wall you would find around a well. (Larry Jonas, Mormon Claims Examined [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1961], 69)
