Can we bless our children this way today ? Why or why not ? Was it a prophetic blessing, or did he simply know his children well enough to predict what their lives would be marked by ?

Great blog you have here.
 

Thanks for visiting my blog. Yours doesn't seem half bad either!

It's pretty clear to me that these blessings are beyond even prophetic - take Noah's curse of Canaan, for example. They almost seem causal as well as predictive, which makes me think of all of those debates attempting to distinguish predestination and foreknowledge.

Anyway, in general I'm a little wary of seeing the primary application of Genesis as "what if I were Abraham" or "should I be like Abraham" or even "Abraham is an example of an individual God deals with - like me". Not that these supposals are invalid, but that they are quite secondary to the question "what is God up to?" We find our application in the fact that we are part of the same story, though arriving at a much later stage.

So, the question of how we are to bless our kids should take the entire story into context - especially our place in it. I'm not entirely sure where this will lead us, but the whole The Lord bless you and keep you... thing has a great tradition. As is the tradition of giving Children biblical names. So if your child is named Daniel, you could say:

May you be like the great prophet Daniel, who refused to defile himself with the food and wine of the ungodly. May you have the courage to serve Christ and him alone, regardless of the spirit of the age. May God reveal to you wisdom and insight to see his plans for the time you live in. May you look to God as your judge in all things.

Those are my initial thoughts. What are yours?
 

I try to give my kids a "bedtime blessing" every night. The benediction usually entails encouragement in their strengths as you have mentioned. Anything that falls within the Aaronic barak is probably acceptable, and that is a vast umbrella. Your ideas are great.