Ambrose of Milan : Our God himself also exhorts that people with his own prophecy and promises them advancement in the faith, the fruit of his gift, for he says to them, "Joseph shall put his hand on your eyes." It was not that the holy patriarch was troubled as to who should close his eyes, although in the clear understanding of it a natural love is also being expressed. For we often desire to embrace those whom we love. How much more, when we are about to depart from this body, do we take delight in the last touch of our beloved children and find consolation in such a provision for our journey. Yet in a mystical sense we may take it to mean that afterward the Jewish people are going to know their God. For this is a mystery, that the true Joseph places his hands over the eyes of another, so that he who before did not see may now see. Come to the Gospel, read how the blind man was healed, when Jesus put his hand on him and took away his blindness. Indeed, Christ does not put his hand on those who are going to die but on those who are going to live or, if on those who are going to die, rightly so, because we first die in order that we may live again. For we cannot see God unless we die to sin previously. — ON JOSEPH 14.83 John Chrysostom : See how whatever the good man longed for the Lord promises him, and in fact much more. That is to say, in his generosity he exceeds our requests out of fidelity to his characteristic love. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt," he says. Because Jacob dreaded the length of the journey, accordingly he says, "Have no regard for the weakness of your old age—I will make you into a great nation there. I will accompany you and make everything easy for you." Notice the considerateness of the expression: "I will go down with you to Egypt." What could be more blessed than to have God as traveling companion? Then he spoke the consoling thought that the old man had particular need of: "Joseph's hands will close your eyes in death." That dearly beloved son of yours will personally prepare your body for burial, and his hands will close your eyes in death.So, quite happy and free from all concern, Jacob took to the road. Consider at this point, I ask you, with what cheerfulness the good man makes the journey, being so reassured by God's promise. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 65.6-7 Origen of Alexandria : But I judge that something more of mystery yet lies hidden in this place. For it moves me that he said: "I will make you into a great nation, and I will go down with you into Egypt, and thence I will call you back at the end." Who is it who was made "into a great nation" in Egypt and was called back "at the end"? As far as concerns that Jacob, of whom it is thought to be said, it will not seem to be true. For he was not called back "at the end" from Egypt, since indeed he died in Egypt. And it will be absurd if anyone says that Jacob was called back by God in this, that his body was carried back. And if this be accepted, it will not be true that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." It does not, then, befit that these things be understood of a dead body, but that they be confirmed regarding the living and the vigorous. Let us see, therefore, whether perhaps a figure is formed in this either of the Lord descending into this world and "into a great nation," that is, into the Church from the nations, and, all things done and consummated, returning to the Father, or of the "first-formed man," who descends into contests in Egypt, when, cast out from the delights of paradise, he is led to the labors and hardships of this world, a contest with the serpent being set before him, when it is said: "you shall watch his head and he shall watch your heel," and again when it is said to the woman that: "I will put enmities between you and him, and between your seed and his seed." Nor yet does God forsake them, placed in this contest, but he is always with them. He is well pleased in Abel, he rebukes Cain; invoked, he is present to Enoch; he commands Noah to build the ark of salvation in the flood; he leads Abraham out "from the house of his father" and "from his kindred"; he blesses Isaac and Jacob; he leads the sons of Israel out of Egypt. Through Moses he writes the law of the letter; through the prophets he fulfills what was lacking. This is to be with them in Egypt. But that he says: "I will call you back thence at the end," this I judge to be, as we said above, that at the end of the ages his only-begotten Son descended for the salvation of the world even into the lower regions and thence called back the "first-formed man." For that which he said to the robber: "today you shall be with me in paradise," understand this to be said not to him alone, but also to all the saints, for whom he had descended into the lower regions. In this, then, more truly than in Jacob, will that be fulfilled which was said: "I will call you back thence at the end." — HOMILIES ON Genesis 15.5 Origen of Alexandria : But each one of us also, by the same order and by the same way, enters Egypt and the contests, and, if he merits that God always remain with him, he will make him "into a great nation." For a great nation is the number of the virtues and the multitude of righteousness, in which all the saints are said to be multiplied and to increase. That also is fulfilled in him which was said: "I will call you back thence at the end." For the end is set down as the perfection of things and the consummation of the virtues. On account of this, in short, another of the saints also said: "do not call me back in the midst of my days." And again Scripture bears witness to the great patriarch Abraham, that "Abraham died full of days." This, then, is "I will call you back thence at the end," as though he said: since "you have fought the good fight, you have kept the faith, you have finished the course," I will now call you back from this world to the future blessedness, to the perfection of eternal life, to "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord will render at the end of the ages to all who love him." — HOMILIES ON Genesis 15.6 Origen of Alexandria : But let us see also what is to be thought from this, that he says: "and Joseph will put his hands upon your eyes." I judge indeed that many sacraments of hidden understanding are covered beneath the veil of this word, which to touch upon and knock at belongs to another time. For now, in the meantime, it will not seem to be said without reason — as it also seemed to certain of our predecessors — that a certain prophecy is seen to be designated in this; since indeed of the tribe of Joseph was that Jeroboam who made two golden cows, that he might seduce the people to worship them, and through this, as it were by laying on his hands, blinded and closed the eyes of Israel, that they might not see his impiety, of which it was said: "on account of the impiety of Jacob are all these things, and on account of the sin of the house of Israel. But what is the impiety of Jacob? Is it not Samaria?" But if perhaps someone should deny that those things which under the appearance of piety were said by God as future ought to be bent to a blameworthy sense, we shall say that the true Joseph, our Lord and Savior, just as he put his bodily hand upon the eyes of the blind man and restored to him the sight which he had lost, so also put his spiritual hands upon the eyes of the law, which had been blinded through the bodily understanding of the Scribes and Pharisees, and restored to them sight, so that to those to whom the Lord opens the Scriptures the spiritual sight and understanding in the law might appear. And would that the Lord Jesus might lay also upon us "his hands upon our eyes," that we too might begin to look not at those things "which are seen," but at those "which are not seen," and might open for us those eyes which behold not present things, but future, and might reveal to us the sight of the heart, by which God is seen in spirit, through the same Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is "glory and power unto the ages of ages. Amen." — HOMILIES ON Genesis 15.7