There is a line in Jacob's blessing so strange the ancient translators could not leave it alone. In the Hebrew, Jacob asks an angel to bless his grandsons. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan keeps the angel, and sharpens the edge: "be pleased that the angel whom thou didst ordain for me, to redeem me from all evil, may bless the children" (Genesis 48:16).
In Jewish tradition, angels do not act on their own authority. This one was ordained — assigned, commissioned — by God. It is the same angel, the sages say, who stayed Jacob's fear when he fled from Esau, who walked with him through Laban's house, who wrestled him at the Jabbok until the name Israel was born. Jacob has spent a lifetime learning that rescue comes through agents God appoints.
Then the image turns aquatic. Ephraim and Menasheh shall multiply "as the fishes of the sea in multiplying are multiplied in the sea" — fish, the sages note, because they live beneath the surface, out of reach of the evil eye. Jacob blesses quietly. He does not want the world watching these children. He wants them fruitful, hidden, protected by the same angel who walked with him.