Joseph is a fruitfull bough] Though we read not by expresse mention of any more children that Joseph had but two, yet it may be he had more, for so the speech of Jacob doth import, Chap. 48. vers. 6. but if he had not, he was a fruitfull bough in his two branches, Ephraim and Manasseh, who multiplyed exceedingly. a fruitfull bough by a well] The words are doubled for emphasis, and assurance, or because of his two sonnes Ephraim and Manasseh; and it is said, by a well, because moysture is a meanes of fruitfulnesse, Psalms 1:3. whose branches run over] In the Hebrew, whose daughters; which hath occasioned some to understand that the daughters of the Egyptians, or women of Egypt when Joseph passed by, got them upon the wals to behold his beauty; but first, they are Josephs daughters, not the Egyptians: secondly, the learned in the Hebrew language know it usuall to call that which cometh from another by the name of a sonne, (and sometimes of a daughter, as here) whether it be naturall, as a sparke is called the sonne of a burning coale, Job 5:7. See the marg. variat. or artificiall, as the arrowes are called the sonnes of the quiver, Lamentations 3:13. (see there also the marg. variat.) and of the bow, Job 41:28. And by the like figurative speech is the corne called the sonne of the floore, Isaiah 21:10. because it is there beaten out or the sheafe, or taken thence. over the wall] Moysture and heat are the causes of fruitfulnesse; the Well here spoken of is a meanes of the one, the Wall of the other; for those plants that are set by a wall, as Vines, and Apricocks, and Cherries, and the like, by the reflexive heat of the Sunne thrive better, and ripen sooner then those which are planted by themselves.