Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, by Benjamin West

Ephraim (; he, ''ʾEp̄rayīm'', in pausa: ''ʾEp̄rāyīm'') was, according to the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning" ...

, the second son of

Joseph ben Jacob Joseph ben Rav Jacob HaKohen (Hebrew language, Hebrew: רבי יוסף בן רב יעקב הכהן) commonly known as bar Saṭya (Hebrew: בר סטיא; c. 902 - 969) was the Sura Academy, Gaon of Sura from 930 to 936 and again from 942 to 948. ...

and

Asenath Asenath (, ; Koine Greek: Ἀσενέθ, ''Asenéth'') is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman. She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. There are two R ...

. Asenath was an Ancient Egyptian woman whom

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...

gave to Joseph as wife, and the daughter of Potipherah, a priest of ʾĀwen. Ephraim was born in Egypt before the arrival of the

Israelites The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

from

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

. The

Book of Numbers The book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi''; he, בְּמִדְבַּר, ''Bəmīḏbar'', "In the desert f) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and c ...

lists three sons of Ephraim: Shuthelah, Beker, and Tahan. However,

1 Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( he, דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים ) is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third sect ...

7 lists eight sons, including Ezer and Elead, who were killed in an attempt to steal cattle from the locals. After their deaths he had another son, Beriah. He was the ancestor of

Joshua Joshua () or Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' lit. 'Yahweh is salvation') ''Yēšūaʿ''; syr, ܝܫܘܥ ܒܪ ܢܘܢ ''Yəšūʿ bar Nōn''; el, Ἰησοῦς, ar , يُوشَعُ ٱبْنُ نُونٍ '' Yūšaʿ ...

, son of Nun ben Elishama, the leader of the

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

tribes in the conquest of Canaan. According to the biblical narrative,

Jeroboam Jeroboam I (; Hebrew: ''Yārŏḇə‘ām''; el, Ἱεροβοάμ, Hieroboám) was the first king of the northern Kingdom of Israel. The Hebrew Bible describes the reign of Jeroboam to have commenced following a revolt of the ten northern I ...

, who became the first king of the

Northern Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel (), or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. The kingdom controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan. Its capital, for the most part, was Sama ...

, was also from the house of Ephraim.

Biblical criticism

The

related the name "Ephraim" to the Hebrew root פָּרָה (pārā), meaning "to be fruitful". This referring to Joseph's ability to produce children, specifically while in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

(termed by the Torah as ''the land of his affliction'').Genesis 41:52 The name Ephraim can therefore be translated as "I will be fruitful", with the prefix of aleph (א‎) indicating the first person, singular, future tense. In the biblical account,

Joseph Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

's other son is

Manasseh Manasseh () is both a given name and a surname. Its variants include Manasses and Manasse. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Ezekiel Saleh Manasseh (died 1944), Singaporean rice and opium merchant and hotelier * Jacob Manasseh (die ...

, and Joseph himself is one of the two children of

Rachel Rachel () was a Biblical figure, the favorite of Jacob's two wives, and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, two of the twelve progenitors of the tribes of Israel. Rachel's father was Laban. Her older sister was Leah, Jacob's first wife. Her aun ...

and

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

, the other being Benjamin. Biblical scholars regard it as obvious, from their geographic overlap and their treatment in older passages, that originally Ephraim and Manasseh were considered one tribe – that of ''Joseph''. According to several biblical scholars, Benjamin was originally part of the suggested Ephraim-Manasseh single "Joseph" tribe, but the biblical account of Joseph as his father became lost.''Peake's commentary on the Bible''. A number of biblical scholars suspect that the distinction of the ''Joseph tribes'' (including Benjamin) is that they were the only Israelites which went to

and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the

ites and had remained in

throughout. Israel Finkelstein, ''The Bible Unearthed''. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to

Laban Laban is a French language, French surname. It may refer to: Places * Laban-e Olya, a village in Iran * Laban-e Sofla, a village in Iran * Laban, Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * 8539 Laban, main-belt asteroid People ...

to obtain a wife originated as a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

for this migration, with the property and family which were gained from Laban representing the gains of the Joseph tribes by the time they returned from Egypt; according to textual scholars, the Jahwist version of the Laban narrative only mentions the Joseph tribes, and Rachel, and does not mention the other tribal

matriarch Matriarchy is a social system in which women hold the primary power positions in roles of authority. In a broader sense it can also extend to moral authority, social privilege and control of property. While those definitions apply in general En ...

s at all.

Richard Elliott Friedman Richard Elliott Friedman (born May 5, 1946) is a biblical scholar and the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia. Friedman was born in Rochester, New York. He attended the University of Miami (BA, 1968), the Je ...

, ''Who Wrote the Bible?'' In the Torah, the eventual precedence of the tribe of Ephraim is argued to derive from Jacob, blind and on his deathbed, blessing Ephraim before

.Genesis 48:1 The text describing this blessing features a

hapax legomenon In corpus linguistics, a ''hapax legomenon'' ( also or ; ''hapax legomena''; sometimes abbreviated to ''hapax'', plural ''hapaxes'') is a word or an expression that occurs only once within a context: either in the written record of an entire ...

– the word שכל (''sh-k-l'') – which classical rabbinical literature has interpreted in esoteric manners;''Jewish Encyclopedia'' some rabbinical sources connect the term with ''sekel'', meaning ''mind''/''wisdom'', and view it as indicating that

was entirely aware of who he was actually blessing; other rabbinical sources connect the term with ''shikkel'', viewing it as signifying that Jacob was ''despoiling'' Manasseh in favour of Ephraim; yet other rabbinical sources argue that it refers to the power of Jacob to ''instruct'' and guide the holy spirit. In classical rabbinical sources, Ephraim is described as being modest and not selfish. These rabbinical sources allege that it was on account of modesty and selflessness, and a

prophetic In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pret ...

vision of

, that Jacob gave Ephraim precedence over Manasseh, the elder of the two; in these sources Jacob is regarded as being sufficiently just that God upholds the blessing in his honour, and makes Ephraim the leading tribe.

References

* {{Authority control Book of Genesis people Founders of biblical tribes Joseph (Genesis) People of Egyptian descent th:เผ่าเอฟราอิม

Biblical criticism

See also

References